GIMP for Mac OS X

GIMP

Getting and Installing GIMP

There are various ways to obtain and install GIMP for your Macintosh. In addition to the source code distribution here on www.gimp.org, there are various alternative sources for packaged and even commercially distributed CDs, which aim to make installation and setup an easier task. These include:

Wilber loves Apple is a community that provides GIMP packages and help for Mac OS X users.
MacPorts provide an easy way to install various open-source software products on Mac OS X. They have GIMP 2.4 in the latest revisions.
The MacGIMP project provides GIMP for Mac OS X in a packaged CD format. But they don't offer GIMP 2.4 yet.

Requirements

GIMP will only run on Mac OS X, not on version 9 or earlier of the Macintosh operating system. There are a number of reasons why it is unlikely that GIMP will ever run on older versions of Mac OS. In addition to Mac OS X, the following is a list of what you will need to run GIMP on your Macintosh:

X Windowing Layer
GIMP uses a separate windowing layer, the X11 windowing protocol, on Mac OS X, which must be installed first. The XDarwin project provides this functionality. Apple used to provide their own version of this windowing layer, based on XFree86. Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) now ships with an X11.app based on the X.Org 7.2 release.
Graphics libraries and toolkits
Unlike most GNU/Linux distributions, Mac OS X does not come with the open source libraries upon which GIMP is built. These are typically installed along with GIMP, but can be installed separately. If you want to compile GIMP from source, we suggest that you use MacPorts or fink to install the libraries it depends on.

Help and Documentation

GIMP Documentation

The XDarwin forums are one place to discuss compatibility and installation questions.
In addition, there are forums at the GIMP User Group.

GIMP's user interface is designed to let you work as efficiently as possible. Since the primary menu in GIMP is accessed by a right-click in the image window, it is advisable for Mac users (who all have a single mouse button by default) to obtain a multi-button USB mouse. Another workaround for this problem is to configure your window manager, say for example under XDarwin, to map the control-click to be right-click.