Overview

Linux has excellent graphics tools — from the professional-grade GIMP to powerful command-line image processors. Here's what you need to know.

Image Editors

🎨
GIMP
GNU Image Manipulation Program — the closest thing to Photoshop on Linux. Full-featured: layers, channels, filters, scripts. Install: apt-get install gimp. Free for commercial use.
✏️
Inkscape
Vector graphics editor working with SVG format. Comparable to CorelDRAW or Illustrator for vector illustration work.

Command-Line Image Processing

⚙️
ImageMagick
Incredibly powerful command-line image conversion and manipulation suite. Batch convert, resize, add text, compose images. convert input.jpg -resize 800x600 output.jpg.
$ convert image.bmp image.png          # format conversion
$ convert image.jpg -resize 50% small.jpg # resize
$ mogrify -format png *.bmp             # batch convert
$ identify image.jpg                    # show image info

Image Viewers

🖼️
eog (Eye of GNOME)
GNOME's default image viewer. Fast, clean, supports all common formats.
🖼️
xv
Classic X image viewer with basic editing capabilities. Supports a huge range of formats.
🖼️
display (ImageMagick)
ImageMagick's image viewer. display image.jpg — right-click for menu of processing options.