Updated Photo Editor - the Gimp

This popular open source program has a new version, continuing the steady evolution of this free package that rivals Adobe Photoshop in most things except price.

This graphics package is not only for photos it has a bag full of tools for graphic artists to create original digital art masterpieces.

The Gimp is a cross platform entity with versions capable of running not only on Windows and Mac, but also, under the increasingly popular Linux computer operating system.

I tried the new version on my windows Vista machine and I received a pleasant surprise by how fast it loaded. The old version did not like Vista and took ages to load compared to the Windows XP machine. For the optimization for Vista alone, the upgrade seems to be worthwhile.

There are a number of new features for photographers and these are some of my highlights.

There is now a red eye removal filter for those shots where people look directly at the flash.

There is a new Perspective Clone tool making it easier to perform cloning while taking the perspective of an image into account. The traditional clone tool still functions as normal.

The Gimp provides a brand new filter to provide software correction for barrel distortion and vignetting caused by the camera lens.

There is now full support for color profiles allowing consistent color rendition throughout the whole 'digital darkroom' process. This complements improved control over all aspects of the printout with an easy to understand interface and immediate preview

The software still feels a bit clunky in places and demands more knowledge and involvement from the user in getting it running, particularly the help file. For some reason this is not integrated into the software and has to be downloaded and installed separately.