Installing GIMP Plugins: A How-To Guide.
GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a free open source photo editing program that many people use as an alternative to Photoshop. It’s great for a variety of design tasks, including restoring old photos and creating your own thumbnails.
Some of its most powerful assets are plugins developed by independent programmers. Plugins are small programs that enhance the functionality of the GIMP and add new features to it.
Installing the GIMP plugins begins by copying the plugin to the appropriate directory and then restarting GIMP.
Where is your GIMP file?
The GIMP stores the following user information in a GIMP profile (directory or folder):
- Settings and presets for tools.
- Keyboard shortcuts.
- Brushes, palettes, gradients, scripts, plugins, brush dynamics, patterns and fonts.
Users can find their GIMP profile in the following locations for different operating systems:
- Linux: /home/ {your_id }/.gimp-2.10.4 (or your version of GIMP) OSX: /Users/ {your_id }/Library/GIMP/2.10.4 (or your version of GIMP)
- Windows: C: \ Users \ your-name \ Appdata \ Roaming \ GIMP \ 2.10.4 \ (or your version of GIMP)
When you restart your system, GIMP will scan your directories and load available plugins. There are three types of GIMP plug-ins:
- Script-fu extensions with the .scm extension.
- Zip files.
- Python scripts with a. py extension.
- From the top GIMP menu, choose Edit> Preferences> Folders> Scripts.
Where to place Script-fu attachments
- If you are using Windows and you see more than one directory like in the screenshot above, select your user or home directory.
- Copy the .scm plugin to your directory. When you restart GIMP, it will appear in your Script-Fu plugin menu.
Where to place Zip files and Python scripts
You will need to copy these plugin files to the GIMP plugins directory. First, extract the zip files and copy their contents, not the zip file.
Go to Edit> Preferences> Folders> Plugins to go to the plugins directory. On Windows, select your user or home directory.
Copy the contents of the zip and .py file to the plugin directory, restart GIMP and the plugins will appear in your GIMP menu.
- If the plugin is in a zip file, extract the files and copy their contents to the GIMP plugins and scripts folder. In GIMP, choose Edit> Preferences> Folders.
Manually install GIMP components
- Scroll down to the Plugins and Scripts sections. You will see two folders in each section. The first is the system folder. The second is the user folder.
- Click the second folder.
- Open the file manager by clicking Show file location in the file manager.
- Move PY formats to Plug-ins folder
- Move the SCM formats to the Scripts folder.
- Restart GIMP.
Automatically install GIMP components
Some plugins included in the GIMP distribution have their own installer. It depends on the operating system and the plugin itself.
Most of these plugins are accessed through the Filters menu. Double click the plugin to install it.
Please be aware that GIMP scripts and plugins are platform dependent. When choosing which files to download, make sure they match your operating system.
Below are some of the popular GIMP plugins.
BIMP – Bulk Image Processing Plugin
BIMP allows users to manipulate a group of images, for example:
- Change compression and format
- Resize
- Flip and rotate
- Crop
- Watermark
- Change Compression and Format
- Color and Curve Correction
- Rename
Hugen
You can assemble a mosaic of images to create a panorama with Hugin.
Hugin is available for Linux, Windows and Mac and runs as a standalone application.
Refocus
Some images are blurry or out of focus. Refocus will try to fix them by smoothing the edges to make the photo clearer.
Adjust the parameters in the plugin dialog and see your results.
Cartoonise
Convert your photos to cartoons with CarTOONize. Choose from five different filters.
Bold Table
Darktable is a photography app. It acts as a virtual light table and darkroom, managing your digital negative database.
View negatives through a scalable light table. Create and enhance raw images.
Watermark
Unfortunately, people steal other people’s content on the Internet and this is difficult to prevent. However, you can protect your digital art with the Watermark GIMP plug-in.
Add watermark text to your images to protect them. Choose size, font and position. This plugin is a Script-Fu plugin.
Beautify
Enhance and brighten your photos with Beautify.
Combine many different editing and photo effects options in one interface. Use this plugin to turn GIMP into your very own photo retouching studio. Match contrasts and colors, apply filters and add some glamor to your photos.
GIMP is a free and powerful photo editing tool. With the addition of plugins, GIMP has become one of the best free Photoshop alternatives.
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