In August of 2023, Magnifying glass became the official GNOME image viewer. If it is the default application, in Ubuntu it is not yet, it depends on the Linux distribution, but the GNOME project already recommends using this new app. Among the reasons we find that it is in active development, something that was again made clear last week, when they published future plans with a function that will be very popular with all types of users, whether they are demanding or not.
The novelty we are talking about, which is in the fusion phase and has not yet reached the stable version, will allow you to make certain edits to the images. What already has merged There are crop, rotate and flip options, but it's still in its early stages. At the moment, only PNG is supported, with JPEG being the next to be able to take advantage of this capability.
Loupe vs Gwenview, or why many of us opt for KDE software
If anyone is afraid that Loupe will go too far and become complicated, there is no reason. Loupe will continue to bet on a GNOME Philosophy, which is fine for those who like this desktop, but not enough for those of us who want to do something more with our apps.
I have been using KDE for over 5 years now, either in one distribution or another, and I do so for a number of reasons, one of which is that its applications are more powerful. Gwenview It has been allowing you to make similar edits for ages. As if that were not enough, it has also recently added a tool for marking up images, with which you can add arrows, text, numbers, etc.
Now, if both projects exist and are both so popular, it's because they both have their audience. If you get used to Gwenview, things will eventually come out like breathing. But for someone who wants something simpler, having to launch a separate editor can be confusing. That's where Loupe comes in with its simple GNOME-style editing, something we'll see in this 2025 that we've just entered.