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4.7 star rating
0
Design
Linux
Productivity
What are the best Linux image editing tools?
11
Options
Considered
169
User
Recs.
Jan 25, 2024
Last
Updated
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10
Options
Considered
Best Linux image editing tools
Price
Platforms
License
77
Krita
-
Windows, Linux, Mac, Android
Open source
59
Gimp
-
Windows 10/8/7; Linux; MacOS
GPLv3+
--
Darktable
Free
Windows, Linux, Mac
-
--
RawTherapee
Free
Windows, Linux, Mac
-
--
Pinta
-
Windows, Linux, Mac, BSD
-
See Full List
77
Krita
My Rec
ommendation
for
Krita
My Recommendation for
Krita
All
17
Experiences
3
Pros
7
Cons
6
Specs
Top
Pro
•••
Free and open source
Krita is completely free and open source. They have raised a couple of successful Kickstarters in the past to get the initial financing and now they are accepting donations.
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Top
Con
•••
Poor touch controls
They are still pretty much a WIP. But they are getting there.
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ReceptiveCethlenn's Experience
Buggy to the point I'm screaming at the monitor. Don't bother if you put any value on your time.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows, Linux, Mac, Android
License:
Open source
Technology:
C++, Qt
Top
Pro
•••
Constantly updated
Krita is getting constant releases with updates and bug fixes. New features are added at a pace that far surpasses the other alternatives.
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Top
Con
•••
BUG RIDDEN - randomly corrupts image while editing
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RespectableKusarikku's Experience
Great performance and easy learning curve. You can choose between standard most used interface layouts, like photosop. Im photo professional and I use it a lot more than gimp. Cause interface, mostly.
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Top
Pro
•••
Amazing support for displaying brushes
Krita's preset brushes are one of the default dockers. Each brush has a preview on mouseover that shows a detailed view of the type of brush involved. All the brushes also have useful and descriptive names such as "HP Pencil" or "Textured Fuzzy".
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Top
Con
•••
Documentation is lacking
Krita's official documentation is incomplete in some areas, especially for new features that are constantly added. But this is compensated with it's great design and usability which makes it easier to understand how things work.
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cosmo's Experience
Krita is the absolute best image editing software in existence! I highly recommend it.
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Top
Pro
•••
Easy to use layout
All the most used and useful tools are easy to find in Krita's UI and are often just one click away. They are not hidden behind menus or dropdowns.
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Top
Con
•••
Heavy on RAM usage
8GB of RAM may be not enough for multi-layers, high definition painting. Projects grow in size and resources usage very quickly.
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Top
Pro
•••
It is also great for digital drawing
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Top
Con
•••
KDE does not fit well in Gnome environment
Might be a pro if you are using KDesktop, but usually the default desktop in Linux is Gnome or "Gnome based" .
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Top
Pro
•••
Very customizable
Although the UI is rather busy, Krita is very customizable. The editing window can be themed and the sidebar can be customized extensively throw many dockers or panes.
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Top
Con
•••
New features are not tested thoroughly
Since releases are so often and with little time between them, usually new features are not tested a lot and this can bring a lot of bugs with them. Which fortunately are quickly patched in the next release.
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Top
Pro
•••
Easy editing in a tiled view
Tiled view that shows your image tiled in the editor, and permits you to edit it as you are seeing it tiled. If the brush passes out of your texture, it will just automatically wrap back the painting to the other side of the original texture, while permitting you to paint and see the results on any of the tiled "clones" (the shortcut key to activate this is w by default).
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Get it
here
Recommend
68
8
59
Gimp
My Rec
ommendation
for
Gimp
My Recommendation for
Gimp
All
20
Experiences
2
Pros
9
Cons
8
Specs
Top
Pro
•••
Feature rich
GIMP is the most feature rich free image editing tool. It has most image manipulation and workflow tools that you would expect from an image editing software and what it lacks it makes up with plugins.
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Top
Con
•••
The UI is not very intuitive
Many simple tasks are complicated in GIMP. For example, changing the brush size is annoying. Basically the UI is not bad, but not very good either.
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NeighborlyAmmit's Experience
The UI goes beyond bad, it's diabolical. Until you have learned how the gimp developers think about image editing, you won't be able to use it. You'll ned extensive googling to do even the simplest things.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows 10/8/7; Linux; MacOS
License:
GPLv3+
Tethered capture:
No
Non-Distructive Editing:
No, Feature in development with GEGL
See All Specs
Top
Pro
•••
Cross-platform 
GIMP is cross platform compatible with Linux, Mac and Windows making it perfect for a team with varying hardware.
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Top
Con
•••
Unintuitive interface
GIMP doesn't embrace OS X application design, thus Mac users might have a hard time wrapping their heads around GIMP's interface.
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Ajay Kumar Rawani's Experience
Awesome !
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Top
Pro
•••
Extendable
Being open source GIMP gives users a lot of room to create plugins so that they can add features that were otherwise not available for them. Almost any feature that you may need can be found as a plugin.
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Top
Con
•••
Looks awful compared to modern designs
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Top
Pro
•••
Lightweight
Compared to to other photo editing software, GIMP is very light weight. In addition it isn't very resource-intensive, meaning it is possible to put it on a flash drive and have it with you to load up on just about any computer.
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Top
Con
•••
Lacks adjustment layers 
Adjustment layers offer a non-destructive way of combining different photo manipulations. Without adjustment layers the only way to see changes is by irreversibly editing the image. They are promised in future updates.
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Top
Pro
•••
Modular & single-window interface options 
By default GIMP splits out each window, but you can check to use the one screen mode in options if you prefer.
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Top
Con
•••
Limited color profile support
Gimp currently only supports sRGB. CMYK or even other wider gamut RGB color profiles are not supported yet. This severely limits Gimp uses as a tool for many commercial level projects, projects that require color high consistency between different types of media assets, and any production pipeline which works with physical media. That said, this is an issue they are working on with GEGL and babl, which ultimately could bring these features not only to gimp but to many other opensource applications as well.
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Top
Pro
•••
Beginner-friendly 
Gimp has less features than programs like Photoshop, but for a beginner, or someone not needing complicated options, Gimp is the perfect choice. It allows you to quickly do basic photo manipulation so you can easily get the product you need without having to worry about complicated features getting in the way.
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Top
Con
•••
No non-distructive editing
Gimp currently lacks non-destructive editing, This severely limits Gimp uses as a tool for many commercial level projects. To some extent on low level projects this isn't an issue because of Gimps use of their history feature but its not the same as actually providing proper features with non-destructive editing capabilities. That said, this is an issue they are working on with GEGL, which ultimately could bring non-destructive editing capabilities not only to Gimp but to many other opensource applications as well.
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Top
Pro
•••
Free and open source
GIMP is completely free and open source, meaning you can use GIMP and all of its features without spending a penny. This makes it an excellent case for artists or designers who may not have the budget to spend on Photoshop.
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Top
Con
•••
Poor performance
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Top
Pro
•••
Powerful
GIMP is the most feature rich free image editing tool. It has most image manipulation and workflow tools that you would expect from an image editing software and what it lacks it makes up with plugins.
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Top
Con
•••
Less features than other programs
Being a free program, it shouldn't be surprising that it has limited features. For those needing more advanced features for something more professional, GIMP just isn't for you.
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Top
Pro
•••
Can use some Photoshop add-ons
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Get it
here
Recommend
38
6
--
Darktable
My Rec
ommendation
for
Darktable
My Recommendation for
Darktable
All
5
Pros
2
Cons
2
Specs
Top
Pro
•••
Fast and Flexible
A very well considered UI makes edits fast and fluid. You can redo or undo any step without disturbing any other part of your edit. The UI doesn't get in the way.
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Top
Con
•••
For tethered capture on Linux you may need additional software installed that is not a dependency for Darktable
First make sure you have gphoto2 and libgphoto2.
See More
Specs
Platforms:
Windows, Linux, Mac
Technology:
C
Tethered capture:
Yes
Non-Distructive Editing:
Yes
Top
Pro
•••
Feature rich
There are a lot of different modules.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Can be overwhelming
There are a lot of different modules. You're going to need some time watching tutorials to understand how to get the best out of it.
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Hide
See All
Free
Recommend
2
--
RawTherapee
My Rec
ommendation
for
RawTherapee
My Recommendation for
RawTherapee
All
3
Pros
1
Cons
1
Specs
Top
Con
•••
Mac version is unstable
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Excellent docs
RawTherapee community maintains a wiki called RawPedia that covers everything about the software from top to bottom.
See More
Specs
Platforms:
Windows, Linux, Mac
Technology:
C++
Hide
See All
Free
Recommend
3
--
Pinta
My Rec
ommendation
for
Pinta
My Recommendation for
Pinta
All
15
Experiences
6
Pros
5
Cons
3
Specs
Top
Pro
•••
Loads quickly
Because it's lightweight and small in size, Pinta loads up very fast when executed.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Missing features
Pinta is a simple and lightweight alternative to popular image editing tools. It's very similiar to WIdnows' paint.NET. While it does have the most basic features and functionalities, it's missing some of the more advance features that can be found elsewhere.
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Anon Anonchik's Experience
Selection tool is not even bad, it's awful! No action cancellation by ESC shortcut. It can not be named "Paint.NET replacement for Linux".
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows, Linux, Mac, BSD
Technology:
C#
Top
Pro
•••
Clean UI
Pinta's UI is very clean and helpful. Almost every tool that is now by default in image editors is displayed in a neat manner when you first fire up the software.
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Top
Con
•••
Application is always crashing
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ReceptiveCethlenn's Experience
Loads really quickly. Crashes even faster. Useless.
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Top
Pro
•••
Free and open source
Pinta is completely free and open source.
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Top
Con
•••
Possibly abandoned
Has not seen an update since 2015.
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NobleSakpata's Experience
Better than Gimp, Inkscape , and Krita... I tried those three and there is so much stuff in the way, which, if you move it, then need it, you have to hunt for it. Pinta is clean, well set up. I use it for all my image work, which I do a lot of. Quick and easy.
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Top
Pro
•••
Easy to learn and use
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EarnestSirsir's Experience
Could have been a really useful simple graphics tool - but keeps crashing and loses all work
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Multilingual
Pinta is available (at least partially) in over 55 languages.
See More
MerryEhecatl's Experience
looks useful but crashes constantly
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CourteousAkhushtal's Experience
The application is always crashing.
See More
Hide
See All
Get it
here
Recommend
16
9
--
MyPaint
My Rec
ommendation
for
MyPaint
My Recommendation for
MyPaint
All
3
Pros
1
Cons
1
Specs
Top
Con
•••
Is not stable at all
I could not even open a png file to start without the software to freeze.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Forgo the need to resize the canvas
If a user needs a bigger canvas all they need to do is zoom out instead of re-sizing.
See More
Specs
Platforms:
Windows, Linux, Mac
Hide
See All
Free
Recommend
3
--
XnView MP
My Rec
ommendation
for
XnView MP
My Recommendation for
XnView MP
Hide
Get it
here
Recommend
2
--
mtPaint
My Rec
ommendation
for
mtPaint
My Recommendation for
mtPaint
All
6
Experiences
1
Pros
4
Specs
Top
Pro
•••
Very speed and complete tool for classics web tasks
See More
PassionatePabilsag's Experience
The best tool for ordinaries and classics jobs. Perfect for web tasks.Not for artist who want effects.
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Specs
License:
GNU
Top
Pro
•••
Very lightweight
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Free and Open Source
MtPaint is free to use and licensed under the GNU General Public License.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Covers many basic image transformations
See More
Hide
See All
Get it
here
Recommend
5
--
PencilSheep
My Rec
ommendation
for
PencilSheep
My Recommendation for
PencilSheep
All
6
Pros
4
Cons
2
Top
Pro
•••
Seems stable and light
This is an expectation though, since was not used/ tested long term.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Snap only
For Linux, the choice seems to have been to offer PencilSheep as snap only, sorry, no .deb, no .rpm, no nothing. If you do not have/ use snap (for many, including valid reasons), PencilSheep is beyond your reach.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Simple to use, initiative
See More
Top
Con
•••
Project no longer supported?
Although it is offered widely (including Google), the devs website seems dead. Hence, it is unclear whether it is still developed and supported actively.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Full set of image manipulation tools
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Cross platform
See More
Hide
See All
Free
Recommend
3
--
Pixeluvo
My Rec
ommendation
for
Pixeluvo
My Recommendation for
Pixeluvo
Hide
Get it
here
Recommend
3
Don't see your favorite option? Add it.
--
AzPainter
My Rec
ommendation
for
AzPainter
My Recommendation for
AzPainter
FREE
Recommend
3
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