When looking for alternatives to almighty Photoshop, Pixelmator Pro is an excellent option to consider. However, if what you are looking for is a completely free application that does not require subscriptions or payments, the only quality option currently available on the market is called GIMP.
We could say that GIMP is the free Photoshop cross-platform available on all platforms on the market: Windows, Linux and macOS. Unfortunately, the version for macOS is the one that has always had a much slower development, however, that does not mean that it is abandoned, since version 2.10.22 has just been released.
This new version, which includes a large number of bug fixes compared to the version that was released in the middle of the year, includes maintenance changes to the kernel code, in addition to the following functions:
- Improved support for files in HEIC format and compatibility with the AVIF format. AVIF is a HEIF variant that uses AV1 compression (instead of HEVC in the same HEIF container format, also called HEIC). This encoding format is open source, copyright-free, and developed by the Alliance for Open Media.
- New improvements in PSP file format support (Paint Shop Pro). Raster layers of PSP images over version 6 are now supported, in addition to 16-bit integers, grayscale and indexed images.
- Multi-layer TIFF export enhancements. Multilayer TIFF export has been improved by allowing layers to be clipped to the boundaries of the exported image.
- Improvements in the management of EXIF targeting metadata. In the previous version of GIMP, when an image with an orientation tag was imported, the application itself would rotate the image or leave it as is. If we did not rotate it, the image kept the rotation label, being preserved if we exported it to other formats, so when opening it in other applications, it would be rotated automatically. With this update, the Orientation tag is removed, whether you accept the rotation or not.
- New Sample Merged feature in GEGL tool.
According to the compatibility with Big Sur, for now we will have to wait a bit, as the application has some performance problems. You can download this new version just like previous ones, through this link.