GIMP-GNU Image Manipulation Program

What is this GIMP?

The "GNU Image Manipulation Program" (originally the General Image Manipulation Program) sired by Spencer Kimball & Peter Mattis.

In their own words, "GIMP is our answer to the current lack of free (or at least reasonably priced) image manipulation software for GNU/Linux and UNIX in general."

It is a raster editor, which means that it performs operations directly on the pixels that make up the image, and not a vector editor. Other (proprietary) raster editors include Adobe Photoshop, Jasc Paintshop Pro and the humble Microsoft Paint. An alternative free editor is the KOffice project, Krita. Users wanting to edit photographs will certainly want a raster editor like GIMP. Graphic designers and illustrators may prefer a vector editor depending on their tastes.

Where do I get it?

Most (if not all) GNU/Linux distributions will support GIMP through their package management systems and may even come with GIMP preinstalled. You can follow links to GNU/Linux and UNIX, Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac OS X for the latest binaries. Of course, this is free software so the source code is available to, along with instruction on how to compile it.