14 DAY TRIAL // GNOME developer Debarshi Ray shares some very exciting details about some of the major features that are coming to his GNOME Photos 3.20 application this spring as part of the GNOME 3.20 release.
We reported the fact that the GNOME Photos image viewer app tried to become an image editor too back in November 2015, so if you're reading our website on a daily basis, today's news should not come as a surprise to you. Non-destructive editing was implemented in the second milestone for this cycle.
However, Debarshi Ray notes the fact that GNOME Photos is not trying to be a full-fledged photo editor, such as GIMP or darktable, but to fill a small gap left by the aforementioned apps and similar software. The developer things users need a quick image editing tool in their daily computing lives.
"Non-destructive editing has landed this cycle," said Debarshi Ray, maintainer of GNOME Photos. "While Photos will never be a fully featured professional image editor like Darktable or GIMP, I believe this plugs an important gap for those looking for a simpler option."
Magic filters, help overlay, and more
GNOME Photos 3.20 will allow users to do simple editing operations to their photos, such as color adjustment, cropping, as well as to add filters in the style of those used by mobile applications like Facebook or Instagram, as well as Google Photo's online image editing component.
Tech-savvy users will be glad to learn that GNOME Photos' brand-new non-destructive editing functionality is based on the GEGL component used in the almighty GIMP image editor, which also adds support for higher bit-depths, multiple pixel formats, and handling of larger than huge images.
Among other interesting changes that have been implemented in the upcoming GNOME Photos 3.20 app, which is set for release on March 23, 2016, along with the GNOME 3.20 desktop environment, we can mention undo notification for editing, crop palette and metadata handling improvements, and a help overlay.
