02-25-2025, 10:10 PM
The Gimp file format saves everything: your layers, selections, paths, masks... exactly like DOCX contains your document structure and XLSX contains your formulas. See it as a "project" file. Then the exported image formats (PNG/JPG/WebP/GIF...) are "publication" formats, like a PDF. You wouldn't consider saving a complex spreadsheet to a PDF only and throwing away the XLSX, would you?
Save and Export got separated a couple of releases ago because people would save their images to a publication format (PNG or else) and immediately exit Gimp, and oops... there goes the whole set of 63 layers... Since this has been implemented I see a lot less folks complaining or even wondering about the separation than I saw people crying over lost work with the previous way.
Why other software doesn't read XCF is a matter of priorities or politics. Some FOSS images viewers can display GIMP XCF files. But of course I don't expect Photoshop to import XCF files any more than I expect MS-Office to be able to read LibreOffice files.
Save and Export got separated a couple of releases ago because people would save their images to a publication format (PNG or else) and immediately exit Gimp, and oops... there goes the whole set of 63 layers... Since this has been implemented I see a lot less folks complaining or even wondering about the separation than I saw people crying over lost work with the previous way.
Why other software doesn't read XCF is a matter of priorities or politics. Some FOSS images viewers can display GIMP XCF files. But of course I don't expect Photoshop to import XCF files any more than I expect MS-Office to be able to read LibreOffice files.