GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a freely distributed piece of software suitable for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition, and image authoring. It is a powerful piece of software with capabilities not found in any other free software product. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert-quality photo-retouching program, an online batch-processing system, a mass production image renderer, or an image-format converter. GIMP is modular, expandable, and extensible. It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything. The advanced scripting interface allows everything from the simplest task to the most complex image-manipulation procedures to be easily scripted.

Note: You will need to download both GTK+ Runtime Environment and The Gimp installers. Install GTK+ before installing The Gimp.

Version 2.4 includes a new icon theme, scalable brushes, revised selection tools, new color menu, full-screen editing, new crop tool, improved printing, red eye removal, perspective clone, lens distortion and various other improvements.

Editor's review of The GIMP Pretty things up a bit

The volunteer developers of The GIMP have been working hard to develop a polished, user-friendly, and freely distributed image editor. Although the separated palette windows may disturb those users who are used to more traditional layouts, your comfort level should grow exponentially as you discover how pain-free the program is. The latest update is robust enough to have earned a full-point upgrade, although it's merely a jump from 2.2 to 2.4.

One of the most powerful general-purpose image editors around, the upgrades make the GNU Image Manipulation Program eminently comparable to Photoshop. Older features include channels, layers and masks, filters and effects, tabbed palettes, editable text tools, and color operations such as levels. New improvements include scalable brushes, revised selection tools, a new color menu, full-screen editing, a new crop tool, improved printing, red eye removal, perspective clone, lens distortion, and more. It even has regex-based pattern matching for power users.

The application provides professional tools that can stand against the big boys without the hefty price tag. Even the installation process has gotten simpler, with no need to download and install the GTX Runtime Environment separately. Extremely powerful and easy to work with, GIMP is ideal for both amateur and pro photographers, Web designers, or anyone who wants to create and edit professional-quality digital images on a budget.