The next stable release of GNOME Photos includes a number of core improvements, including new photo editing features.
As a Shotwell alternative Photos is …Well, it’s getting there. It handles the basics well enough, letting you import and browse photos, sort them into albums, and share them via email.
GNOME Photos is also a photo editor and has a number of photo editing tools built-in, including crop, auto-enhance, and color adjustments. It also has a decent selection of one-click Instagram-style photos filters.
The upcoming release of GNOME Photos 3.28 improves on these foundations, with developer Umang Jain has listing the new features in a new blog post:
GNOME Photos 3.28 will include:
- Shadows & Highlights editing
- Ability to change crop orientation
- Support for zoom gestures
- Option to set edited photo as a background
- Complete support for EXIF rotation
Other features in development (which are likely to also ship in Photos 3.28 this spring) include the long awaited arrival of Facebook upload support; the ability to import photos from connected cameras and SD cards (a feature I make heavy use of in Shotwell); and overall faster editing through the use of mipmap support.
Trivia: GNOME Photos uses the same image processing library for editing as that used in GIMP.
Shotwell Replacement In Waiting
Photos is a great little app and I’m really looking forward to it being able to replace Shotwell as my go-to photo manager (Shotwell is great, but I’ve never been a fan of its floating tool bars).
Photos 3.28 will be released as part of GNOME 3.28 in March and will, if all goes to plan, be available to install on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.
Not tried this app? I say give it a go. You can install GNOME Photos on Ubuntu from the Software app, but do keep in mind that none of the improvements mentioned in this post will be included.