GIMP 2.6 is out

[Garbz]

I know some of you here use the image manipulation program which conjurers up memories of that nasty pulp fiction scene. Well GIMP 2.6 is out now and has some major under the bonnet changes, and a few minor tweaks. Unfortunately the under the bonnet changes are not sufficient yet to make me praise it's glory since they have only ported GIMP to a different framework, but the GIMP code itself still only supports 8bits per channel. Still lets hope GIMP 2.8 will finally be a viable Photoshop replacement for a photographer.

Anyway for a cheap photographer it is already. It's rather powerful, and importantly free. Get it from www.gimp.org
RAW support is available with the http://ufraw.sourceforge.net/ plugin, but a few cameras are still omitted: Nikon D60, D90, D700, Canon 50D, 450D

 

[Bifurcator]

If you want GIMP (or an app created from the GIMP code base) that works with HDR 32 bit grab CinePaint from www.CinePaint.org

But as you noted, GIMP will open 12 and 14 bit RAW files (into 8 bit space).