The Gimp 2.4

On the 11th, GIMP 2.4.2 was officially released (so yeah, this is kinda late), but anyway, there are a lot of new features with this one. Download here. The release notes can be found here.

The interface is a little different, "a refreshed look."

Brushes are now scalable. I look forward to that one.

The selection tools have been completely rebuilt, allowing you to resize existing selections, and more. There is a new foreground select tool. It is used in two steps: 1) You select a region of interest that contains the entire object, then 2) you paint over the selected area with a brush, not crossing the object's border. Yeah, that description confuses me, too. Don't blame me, I got it from their release notes. There's a video tutorial you can watch, too, about this tool (Just click on the release notes link above).

Easier alignment is now possible with a new alignment tool, improved display when zooming in or out, and support for new file formats like:

• Photoshop ABR Brushes (I LOVE this one!)
• Improved reading/writing EXIF in JPEG
• Importing clipping paths in TIFF
• Layer masks can be saved to PSD (nice)
• 16/32 bit bitmaps alpha-channel support in BMP
• 24 bit and Vista icons can be opened and saved (schweet)

Full screen editing is now possible to aid editing digital photography, the crop tool has been revamped, printing has improved, red eye removal, lens distortion effects, JPEG quality has been improved, and more various other improvements, such as a screenshot plugin.

I'll be trying these out soon. Link.