Discover the basics of AVIF in GIMP

Table of Content

TL;DR

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.

AVIF Support for new images

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.

When you export an image from the editor, select the file type "HEIF / AVIF" or use the extension ".avif." A prompt will appear in which you will be able to choose between several possible options. 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.

gimp export avif dialogue showing different bit depths

AVIF Plugin

There is also a plugin called

gimp-avif-plugin by novemesk

. Despite the non-creative name, the user interface is fantastic. It allows you to choose from many options, such as minimum and maximum quantizer, pixel format, bit depth, encoder, encoder speed, alpha channel settings, EXIF data and XMP data processing, as well as the ICC color profile. If you do not understand most of these settings, don't worry, you will probably get along well with the default interface.