While the last stable mtPaint version was released back in 2011, there have been quite a few development releases since then, with the last one dating to June, 2016. I couldn't find a PPA with the latest mtPaint 3.50 development releases, so I created one to make it easy to install in Ubuntu and Linux Mint.

On GIMP's 20th birthday (Nov 22), a new version of the free and open source image editor was released: 2.8.16. This is a bugfix release from the 2.8 stable series and it includes the following changes:

GIMP 2.8.14 was released yesterday, bringing various bug fixes and small enhancements. This is the stable GIMP branch and no new features are added in the 2.8.x releases, just bug fixes.

Update: the Ubuntu / Linux Mint PPA now has GIMP 2.8.14: "Yesterday's 2.8.12 release had broken library versioning, so we had to roll out GIMP 2.8.14 today. The only change is the fixed libtool versioning".

G'MIC (GREYC's Magic for Image Computing) is a framework for image processing that comes with a large number of pre-defined image filters and effects (almost 400, with an extra 300 testing filters). There are several interfaces for G'MIC: a command line tool, a web service, a Qt based interface for real-time webcam manipulation, a library and a GIMP plugin.

After more than a year and a half, a new Pinta version was released yesterday, getting add-in support along with other new features and a huge list of bug fixes.

Pinta is a drawing / image editor which was initially based on Paint.NET, available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X, designed to serve as an alternative to more advanced applications like GIMP, for casual users. The application features drawing tools, unlimited layers and undo history, includes over 35 image effects and adjustments and can be configured to use a docked interface or multiple windows.

Thorsten Stettin has created a new PPA for Ubuntu / Linux Mint users who want to use the latest GIMP 2.9 development builds.

There won't be a GIMP 2.9 stable release - 2.9 is used for development and will result in the next stable GIMP version, 2.10.

The major new feature in GIMP 2.10 will be a complete port to GEGL / high bit depths and the latest GIMP from GIT already allows working in 16bit and 32bit per color channel mode, both integer and float: