XCF (file Format) - Software Support

Software Support

XCF is used as a file format in other programs besides the GIMP:

• Seashore is a lightweight native Mac OS X image editing program based on the GIMP.
• CinePaint is a fork of the GIMP with support for 16 bit and 32 bit floating point channels, and 16 bit integer channels. There are plans for CinePaint to move away from XCF as a file format. The XCF file format used in CinePaint has diverged from the GIMP's native format, so XCF files created in the GIMP cannot be opened in Cinepaint, and vice versa.

Some image viewers and conversion software can read the format with varying degrees of success:

• DBGallery displays multi-layer non-indexed images and allows indexing, searching and other photo database operations.
• ImageMagick has an XCF reader module that can read single-layer non-indexed images.
• Project Dogwaffle including PD Pro, PD Particles and PD Artist imports XCF files using the ImageMagick library.
• Krita imports XCF files using the GraphicsMagick library.
• ShowImg can display multi-layer non-indexed images.
• Gwenview can display multi-layer non-indexed images.
• GImageView can display multi-layer non-indexed images.
• Digikam can display multi-layer non-indexed images.
• Imagine can display single-layer non-indexed images.
• XnView can display single-layer non-indexed images.
• Inkscape added support for XCF export in the 0.44 release.
• XCFTools by Henning Makholm is a set of utilities which deformats and composes XCF images. It allows extraction of individual layers, or an entire composed image, as PNG or PNM.
• IrfanView can display multi-layer images (composite image and individual layers).
• Paint.NET can load and save multi-layer .xcf/.xcfgz/.xcfbz2 images (via ImXCF.FileType plugin)
• Chasys Draw IES can load and save multi-layer .xcf/.xcfgz/.xcfbz2 images (from version 3.71.02)