The GIMP development team has unleashed today (not yet on the official website) another development release of their popular image manipulation software. The GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) 2.7.1 comes with lots of improvements, new functions and many bugfixes. Among these, we can mention support for layer groups, support for multi-column dock windows, improved single-window mode, Photoshop CS4 keyboard shortcuts, RGB565 support, GEGL updates, and many more. Without further ado, we've listed below some of the changes in GIMP 2.7.1. Don't forget to check out the installation part, for the Ubuntu 10.04 PPA.

Highlights of GIMP 2.7.1:

· The Layers, Paths and Channels dialogs received a "lock content" button;
· Added layer groups support;
· Improved the export/save functionality;
· Multi-column dock windows are now supported;
· Cleaned up the user interface by introducing two new classes: GimpImageWindow and GimpDockWindow;
· The toolbox-window-hint setting from gimprc was replaced with dock-window-hint;
· Added single-window mode - with tabs! (it is still incomplete);
· Added Photoshop CS4 keyboard shortcuts in ps-menurc;
· Better highlighting with the Free Select Tool;
· The program's language can now be changed from the preferences dialog (interface section);
· The Toolbox no longer appears in the Recently Closed Docks list, it is now accessible directly from the Windows menu;
· The desaturate tool received and icon;
· Added a new crop guide overlay: Rule of fifths;
· Improved text editing/attribute settings;
· Alt+Click on layers no longer affects the active layer;
· script-fu's scheme was updated;
· The csource plugin received support for RGB565;
· Added grunge/texture brushes created by Johannes Engelhardt;
· Added more documentation for developers;
· Fixed many annoying bugs;
· Updated many translations;
· and many more!

Installation and testing of GIMP 2.7.1:

For your pleasure, we've tested the new GIMP 2.7.1 application on the Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx) operating system. All we had to do was:

- open the Software Sources application from the System -> Administration menu;
- go to the "Other Software" and add the following Launchpad PPA repository for GIMP 2.7.1:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/matthaeus123/mrw-gimp-svn/ubuntu lucid main

- go to the "Authentication" tab and add this key (right click -> Save As).

If you already have GIMP installed in your Ubuntu box, all you have to do is to update your system!

It appears that GIMP 2.7.1 is also available for other versions of the Ubuntu operating system, such as Karmic Koala and Jaunty Jackalope. Install it using the PPAs listed below:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/matthaeus123/mrw-gimp-svn/ubuntu karmic main

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/matthaeus123/mrw-gimp-svn/ubuntu jaunty main

The GIMP 2.7.1 on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx)

The GIMP 2.7.1 on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx)

The GIMP 2.7.1 (single-window mode) on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx)

The GIMP 2.7.1 (single-window mode with multiple tabs) on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx)

As noted above, GIMP 2.7.1 is an unstable release, should not be installed on production machines, and represents the work towards the next stable version: GIMP 2.8. However, this build performed very well under our Ubuntu 10.04 system, and we have to admit that working in single-window mode rules (especially when you have to crop, resize and watermark lots of images daily)!

Download GIMP 2.7.1 (unstable) sources for Linux right now from Softpedia.

Download GIMP 2.6.9 (stable) sources for Linux right now from Softpedia.

Download GIMP 2.7.1 (unstable) for Windows right now from Softpedia.

Special thanks to Matt Walker for setting up the Ubuntu PPA for GIMP 2.7.x.

Follow me on Twitter @MariusNestor