by , 4:25 PM EDT, October 1st, 2008

Gimp.org announced on Wednesday that version 2.6 has been released. The new version was described as an important release and features changes to the user interface that address the most frequent complaints. It also introduces the GEGL graph-based image processing library that will eventually bring high bit-depth and non-destructive editing to GIMP.

User interface improvements include the removal of the toolbox menu bar and merging with the image window menu bar, a change that converts the toolbox and docks into utility windows, and the ability to pan beyond the image border.

Many other small improvements have been made that relate to the free select tool's brush dynamics.

Continued integration with GEGL is planned for version 2.8, the next stable release.

GIMP, the GNU Image Manipulation Program, has been described as having 80 percent of the features of Photoshop for zero percent of the price.

GIMP for the Mac, version 2.6, will be posted soon to the Gimp.org FTP server. It is free, but requires the Mac OS X X11 environment.