Image processing and retouching

Some of the software on test can edit existing images, such as photos.

GIMP is the leader in this section, and it’s overflowing with plugins that affect either the whole image or selected regions. The downside is that many of the plugins are similar to one another, and it can take quite a lot of experimentation to sift through them all.

Krita features a lower number of image processing effects compared to GIMP, but we’d rate the average quality of what’s there to be higher. Both GIMP and Krita can work with the G’MIC image plugin system, so it’s unlikely that you would ever run into a genuine roadblock if you needed a particular image processing feature with either program.

In a pinch, you could use GIMP for photo-editing tasks because the application can load camera RAW files, and it covers most of the basics that are needed in this role, such as cropping to a given aspect ratio, altering contrast, gamma and white balance and colour grading an image. Krita could also be used for photo editing, to an extent, but it’s missing some of the frequently needed tools. This area isn’t the primary focus of MyPaint, and it lacks cloning and healing facilities along with an absence of plugin support and general features to manipulate the overall tone of an existing image. Both GIMP and Krita are both very well suited to this area (retouching), with GIMP slightly ahead.

Inkscape is a vector drawing package and so isn’t much use when it comes to the processing of bitmap images, although it can incorporate existing bitmap images. On the plus side, it’s perhaps the leading Linux program for tracing bitmaps into vector images.