The purpose of this is not to reinvent the wheel, there are thousands on YouTube about how to do these things, if you need more detail. This is just to give you enough information that you can quickly get going with the GIMP to be able to follow instructions in various how-to posts (like the ones to create a transparent fuzzy border or a twirled effect).
You can download the GIMP from www.gimp.org.
After download open the installer file and it will run an installation wizard.
If you shoot jpg files you can load them directly into the GIMP, and you are good to go. If you shoot RAW files then you need to do a bit more.
How to use RAW photo files with the GIMP
You need to use a RAW file converter before the GIMP can open the files.
The tasks that need to happen between RAW files out of the camera and the GIMP are de-mosaicking and applying lens adjustments. Most RAW converters have good tools to do exposure, detail and color adjustments as well.
There are several options, but I have experience with only two of them, RAW Therapee and DarkTable. Right now, I am preferring RAW Therapee, but I will sometimes try out both of them on a photo I really want to have turn out well. Because they have different de-mosaicking method options and use different algorithms for many processes so can result in a different look.
They are both easy to use, quite powerful, and can make photos look very good…even if you never open the GIMP at all.
They each work differently in how they interface with the GIMP.
This article by Davies Media explains about both programs and how to link them to GIMP: https://daviesmediadesign.com/project/open-raw-images-gimp-2-10/.
Once you have loaded one of these you are ready to get going with the GIMP using RAW files.
DarkTable
Darktable seems to have the most press right now, at least in searches and YouTube videos. It can be run as its own-self. In which case you load your photos into it, manage and edit them, changes are non-destructive and stored in a .xmp sidecar file. However, you cannot go directly from DarkTable into the GIMP as an external editor.
To get your files into the GIMP you have two choices:
- Save the file as a .tif, then open it with the GIMP.
- Add Darktable in as a GIMP plug-in. In which case you open the RAW file and GIMP opens DarkTable. You can make changes there, then when you close DarkTable, the adjusted file is opened in the GIMP, as a .tif file. The .tif file created when you open GIMPresides in the folder designated in DarkTable’s export dialog area. The default is a subfolder to the one containing the RAW files called “darktable_exported”.
I find both of these a bit awkward, because I have to load the folder, do whatever DAM (Digital Asset Management) tasks I want to do, then note the filename and location, close DarkTable, open the GIMP, locate the file I want to open, then the GIMP reopens DarkTable. If I already know the filename I can open it in GIMP directly. But Darktable will load only the one file and I can’t switch to a different one. That said DarkTable has some pretty awesome editing capabilities.
To download DarkTable: www.darktable.org.
RAW Therapee
If you install Raw Therapee for all users it will automatically add it as a GIMP plug in and put the correct information in the Raw Image Importer section in the Image import and export section of the preferences.
To download RAW Therapee: www.rawtherapee.com.
To add the GIMP as an external editor: go to Preferences and write in the path and filename to add it as an external editor. As shown in the screenshot below. The path in the screenshot is the default path when you load the GIMP, c:\Program Files\GIMP 2\bin\gimp-2.10.exe, so it will likely be the same for you.
