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Professional Tools and Creative Workflows

March 21, 2026 ·Version 0.6.0

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Fog Panther v0.6.0 is the largest release to date, delivering dozens of professional features for a complete creative workflow. This release adds a full Pen tool with path operations, a Paths panel, layer effects, fill layers, vector masks, new creative filters, four new tools, SVG import, PSD layer effects round-tripping, and sweeping UI refinements.

Pen Tool and Paths Panel

A full Bezier pen tool with rubber-band preview, dynamic cursors, and accurate anchor insertion. Paths support boolean operations (union, subtract, intersect, exclude) with full undo. A custom shape library lets users store and recall reusable path presets.

The new Paths panel provides a complete path management workflow: create, rename, duplicate, and delete paths; convert paths to selections and selections to paths; fill and stroke paths.

Type on Path places text glyphs along arbitrary Bezier curves using arc-length sampling for even spacing.

Vector Masks

Layers can now be clipped by vector paths instead of (or in addition to) raster masks. Vector masks are resolution-independent and produce perfectly sharp edges at any zoom level.

Layer Effects

A full non-destructive layer effects stack:

  • Drop Shadow, Inner Shadow, Outer Glow, Inner Glow
  • Color Overlay, Gradient Overlay, Pattern Overlay, Satin
  • Stroke
  • Bevel & Emboss

Effects are live-previewed and preserved through PSD import/export.

Fill Layers

Three new fill layer types:

  • Solid Color - flat color fill with color picker
  • Gradient - linear, radial, or angular gradient fill
  • Pattern - tiling pattern fill

Fill layers are non-destructive and support masks, opacity, blend modes, and clipping like any other layer.

New Tools

Healing Brush - Uses Poisson blending to seamlessly repair blemishes by matching texture, lighting, and shading from a sampled source.

Magnetic Lasso - Edge-snapping selection tool that follows contrast boundaries, making it easy to select complex shapes along well-defined edges.

History Brush - Paints from a user-selected history state, with a source indicator in the History panel for visual feedback.

Red Eye - One-click red-eye removal tool.

Liquify - A dedicated dialog for freeform mesh warping with push, bloat, pucker, and twirl modes.

New Filters

Creative

  • Channel Mixer - Remix RGB channel contributions with a monochrome option for fine-tuned black & white conversion
  • Selective Color - Adjust CMYK sliders within specific color ranges (reds, yellows, greens, cyans, blues, magentas, whites, neutrals, blacks)
  • Gradient Map - Maps luminance to a configurable color gradient
  • Smart Sharpen - Richardson-Lucy deconvolution sharpening with shadow/highlight fade controls
  • Reduce Noise - LAB-space bilateral/median pipeline for luminance and color noise reduction

Stylize

  • Solarize, Find Edges, Emboss, Wind

Pixelate

  • Mosaic, Crystallize

Distort

  • Six new distort filters

Channel Mixer, Selective Color, and Gradient Map are also available as non-destructive adjustment layers, bringing the total from 12 to 15 types.

Filter Menu Reorganization

Filters are now organized into categorized submenus:

  • Filter > Blur (Gaussian, Box, Motion, Radial, Surface)
  • Filter > Sharpen (Sharpen, Smart Sharpen)
  • Filter > Noise (Add Noise, Reduce Noise)
  • Filter > Pixelate (Mosaic, Crystallize)
  • Filter > Stylize (Solarize, Find Edges, Emboss, Wind)
  • Filter > Distort (6 distort filters)
  • Filter > High Pass

SVG Import

Vector graphics can now be imported via librsvg, with incremental load progress reporting for large files.

PSD Layer Effects Round-Trip

PSD import and export now support the full layer effects stack, reading and writing both legacy lrFX records and modern lfx2 descriptors for broad compatibility.

UI Improvements

  • Tool groups with flyout menus for a compact, organized toolbar
  • Quick Mask button in the toolbar
  • Revised tool keyboard shortcuts for an efficient workflow
  • Scrollable panel tabs with mouse-wheel switching
  • Unified panel toolbar icons for delete and new buttons
  • Color picker colors now saved to preferences
  • Context menu popover fixes

System Requirements

  • Linux with GTK4 (>= 4.10)
  • Available as Flatpak, Snap, .deb, .rpm, and Arch packages