Gnome Photos

FREE | BIT.LY/GNOMEPHOTOS

Sel e-obsessed Instagram fans and bearded Unix gurus are perhaps two entirely di erent crowds, but the typical Linux user will still want to stream their photos and watch what other people share.

Instagram doesn’t ship an o cial client for Linux, but there are some alternatives, such as Photostream ,an Elementary OS apps, and XnRetro from the XnView developer. The rst is quite unstable and is a simple — yet buggy — wrapper for the Instagram website, while the later isn’t open source.

To the joy of all Gnome users, the latest release of the beautiful desktop environment, also known as Gnome Shell,includes a feature that lls this gap and o ers Instagram-style lters directly to your Linux desktop.

Starting from version 3.20, Gnome Photos can now perform basic image editing. You can crop, change colour settings, apply auto-enhancing and add a more personal touch to your images using a number of built-in photo lters. The Filters section contains trendy retro lters such as 1977, Brannan, Gotham, Hefe and Nashville, which all simulate the respective lm-like e ects. You can click each lter and see how it is applied to your image in real time. Gnome Photos does all this action in non-destructive mode, so that your original image stays in its place. Push ‘Done’ when you are happy with the results, then go to the image menu and select Export to give altered image a new name.

While Gnome Photos isn’t a full- edged image editor, it is perfectly capable for simple edits and applying retro lters.