Select Multiple Layers The GIMP team recently announced on Twitter (via a Tweet from the ZeMarmot team) that GIMP 2.10.20, which is the next release version, will include the ability to select multiple layers and layer groups simultaneously. This is one of those features I've been waiting on for YEARS, and am glad to finally see it come to life!



Selecting multiple layers simultaneously will make it easier to do things like move many layers into a single layer group simultaneously, or delete multiple layers simultaneously. It will be a time saver. It isn't clear if you will be able to perform the same edit to multiple layers simultaneously (or add layers masks), but that would be quite an improvement to the program.

Bloom Filter Another new feature announced on Twitter is the "Bloom" filter, which gives you the ability to add a softglow around the highlights of an image. This filter is said to be similar to the "Soft Glow" filter of earlier GIMP versions, though it adds the glow without desaturating the photo (and is therefor less destructive to the photo or layer where it is being added).

Non-Destructive Cropping GIMP will be expanding its non-destructive editing capabilities by adding non-destructive cropping. This feature would have the crop tool crop the image canvas rather than the image itself, preserving the original image and allowing you to undo the crop in the middle of your workflow.

Slow Filter Rendering Fixed The final new feature announced for GIMP 2.10.20 is a fix to slow filter rendering. In other words, when you add a new filter to an image (i.e. the Vignette filter), it may take a couple seconds to render the filter over your image (especially if it is a large image). Before, if you were to uncheck the "preview" option, then turn the preview back on, the filter would have to re-render each time - so you'd have to wait a couple more seconds for the filter to be re-applied to the image.



Well, the GIMP team is fixing this by creating a "preview cache" for your filters that stores the filter and accesses the cache to regenerate a preview of the filter rather than having to generate the filter from scratch every time. This should shave some seconds off everyone's workflow!



I'll obviously release a tutorial covering all the new features for GIMP 2.10.20 once the program is released as part of my "What's New in GIMP" series. There isn't a public release date (nor will there ever be, probably - GIMP likes to keep us on our toes) for the next release, but I would assume it would happen some time between late April to early June.