Introduction
GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) is a free and open-source graphics editor. Although it was developed as a Linux image editor, it has become an effective alternative for Adobe Photoshop, while remaining both free and open source.Exporting as AVIF
As GIMP 3.0 development has been going on, on the 7th of October 2020, GIMP 2.10.22 was released. This release is titled a bug fix, however it had severe effects on GIMP's functionality. Since then, thanks to the encoder libheif, it is now capable of supporting the AVIF image format natively, which means that you can import and export AV1-based AVIF images as you would any other supported format.
First, you will have the option to select the degree to which you want to preserve the quality of the image. We recommend a value above 20 and give you a more detailed comparison below this text. In addition, you can adjust the bit depth of the image. You can choose between 8, 10 or 12 bits per channel. The higher the bit depth, the greater the number of colors stored in your image. By way of comparison, JPG has 8 bits. So if you are not a photographer and only want to use AVIF images for your website, we recommend sticking to 8 bits.
