Yes. GIMP is free and open-source software with no trial period, subscription, or paywalled features. You can download it, install it, and use it for personal or commercial work without paying anything, though the project does accept optional donations.
The safest route is the official installer, which we link to and explain step by step on the GIMP download page. Avoid third-party sites bundling extra software with the installer.
Download the Windows installer, run it, and follow the setup wizard — accepting the default options works fine for most people. The installation guide covers the full process along with common setup issues, like antivirus warnings on first launch.
Yes, a portable build lets you run GIMP from a USB drive or a folder without a full Windows installation. See the GIMP Portable page for how to set it up and what limitations to expect compared with the installed version.
Yes, GIMP runs natively on Windows 11 and is actively tested against current Windows releases. Installation and day-to-day use are essentially identical to Windows 10.
Yes, Windows 10 remains fully supported, and most GIMP users are still on Windows 10 machines. There's no meaningful feature gap between the two operating systems for GIMP.
GIMP is fairly light by modern standards — a dual-core processor and 4 GB of RAM will run it, though 8 GB or more makes large, multi-layer projects noticeably smoother. A dedicated GPU isn't required, but current graphics drivers help some filters run faster. See the features page for more on performance tuning.
Yes. Wacom and most other tablet brands work through standard Windows drivers, and GIMP recognizes pen pressure in its paint tools, including the MyPaint brush engine described on the toolbox page.
Save and Save As write GIMP's native XCF format, preserving layers, masks, and paths so you can keep editing later. Export As writes a flattened file in another format like PNG or JPEG for sharing or printing. If you close GIMP after only exporting, your layer structure isn't preserved unless you also saved an XCF copy.
Layers stack image content on top of each other, each with its own opacity and blend mode, so you can edit one part of an image without affecting the rest. You can reorder, merge, group, and mask layers from the Layers dialog, and the features overview covers layer groups and blend modes in more depth.
GIMP keeps a configurable undo history rather than a fixed number of steps, and you can adjust how much memory it dedicates to undo history in Preferences. In practice most users can step back through dozens of actions without hitting a limit during a normal session.
There's a learning curve, particularly around layers, selections, and the way tool options change per tool, but the interface is no more complex than other professional-grade editors. Working through a guided project, like the ones on our photo editing and drawing pages, is the fastest way to get comfortable.
For most everyday editing, retouching, and compositing tasks, yes — GIMP covers the same core workflow at no cost. Some advanced features, particularly certain AI-assisted tools and tight integration with other paid creative apps, aren't matched one-to-one, so professionals with existing paid workflows may still choose to keep using them alongside or instead of GIMP.
Yes, PNG and JPEG are both natively supported for opening and exporting, along with TIFF, WebP, and HEIF, so everyday photo and web-image formats work without extra plug-ins.
GIMP can open and export most PSD files, keeping layers and basic properties intact. Some Photoshop-only features, like smart objects, may not convert perfectly, so it's worth reviewing an important PSD after opening it.
Not directly — GIMP relies on a RAW processing plug-in such as darktable or UFRaw to develop a RAW file first. Once developed, the image opens in GIMP for further editing, as covered on the features page.
GIMP doesn't currently auto-update itself on Windows, so check the official site periodically or watch the GIMP 3 and GIMP 2.10 release pages for what's new, then download and run the latest installer when you're ready to upgrade.
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