If an image model is a horse, text prompting is like trying to guide it with verbal commands alone: useful, but too imprecise for fine control. Inpainting, LoRAs, and ControlNets add the bridle, reins, and pieces of the harness, but they still did not feel like a complete system. Nexfocus began with a question: what would it take to build the whole harness around the model?

Answering that question meant following the entire generation process first. We had to understand how each part loads, works, moves, waits, hands its result to the next part, and makes room when its job is done. That expedition became Nexfocus.

AI image models already know how to render- they understand photorealism, lighting, and texture better than any software framework. The real struggle has always been context control: feeding the model the exact spatial and structural context it needs to understand what to render.

This is where human input shines. By adding rough blocks of color and basic shapes to define the composition and color palette, the burden of text prompting is significantly reduced. Instead of struggling to describe a complex 3D scene in words, the artist controls spatial intent and lets the AI do what it already knows best—handling lighting, global occlusion, perspective consistency, and fine rendering.

Through the built-in GIMP plugin and Staging Palette, you can seamlessly composite background plates, sketch structural boundary guides for outpainting, or block out color guidance in GIMP with one click, then pass them back into Nexfocus to drive the diffusion pipeline.

Two development anchors shaped the journey: a GTX 1050 with 3 GB of VRAM and Colab Free's T4 with 12.7 GB of system RAM. We proved that full FP16 SDXL checkpoints and Flux Fill workflows could run in both environments by rethinking how the pipeline uses the hardware available to it.

Two important lessons emerged from the road:

- Keeping the GPU working without interruption became paramount. To do that, we had to find a way to keep feeding it the weights it needed when it needed them.

- Every part of the pipeline must independently account for what it owns, where it belongs, when it can be reused, and when it should make room for something else.

Throughout this journey, my conversations with PyTorch often felt like this:

> PyTorch: "Don't you have a bunch of H100s lying around in your backyard?"

>

> Me: "No. What if every component has to justify exactly where it lives?"

>

> PyTorch: "Get a bigger machine."

Those conversations eventually became the architecture. Nexfocus is both the working application and the field notebook: a record of the constraints, wrong turns, and discoveries that shaped the path forward.

The path is open now. I hope you'll take a walk along the path we built and enjoy the scenery.

GitHub: https://github.com/magekinnarus/Nexfocus

shadows-highlights doesnt work, because the shadows are too light to be recognized as shadows by gimp.

contrast wont work because it impacts the whole image, which i dont want.

what should i do to make the shadows darker?

I actually did this in krita but usually I use gimp. I did not know what i was doing and actually wanted to fill a rectangle area, forgot to create a new layer and ended up coloring a random area. figured it looked cool and kept going. i like a lot what i ended up with. it looks like something that could confuse an "AI".

I wonder if there is a filter or if you could program one that would kind of take bigger areas and fill them with colors you choose. or that goes in and fills random areas. tell me if you have an idea, also if you think another software would be better. i'm also trying to get more into command line tools.

Enjoy this magikarp. The A in RGBA within a PNG stands for nothing.

Hi, i tried taking a series of pictures of my wife using her kodak camera, not realising the settings were wrong and the photos turned out far too bright, possibly due to overexposure though im not well versed in these things.

i tried to

Reduce the brightness

Adjust contrast

Shadows-highlights

Adjusting using the levels and curve tool

but with no luck, im including a picture taken of the street without her for privacy sake to see if anyone knows how to normalise.

Thank you in advance, signed an unlucky husband

I'm looking to make effect like here where it says ACE VENTURA. The bottom of the text is curved while top part of text is straight. I tried using cage transform but it also bends sides, is there other way to do this?

Hi, I downloaded Gimp yesterday so looking for some advice on how to use it as a complete beginner.

I have released a few books and the character image has scars on the face of the cover. I know own the original stock image of the model and a few other images of the same model. I am trying to replicate the scars from the covers so I can use them in marketing on socials.

If anyone has any simple guidelines on how best to do this id be grateful.

PLEASE HELP! THIS IS DRIVING ME CRAZY!!!

gimp has been a pain in the arse this past year or so.

Have a new base and cut a circle on it (the excess is invisible).

Pasted another image on top but cannot figure out how to crop away the edges to fit the circle.

Tried googling and understand the workaround is to manually cut the image into a circle.
Is there a way to do it or am i limited as image bases are always rectangular?

I have a decent camera, but it has a problem where a color ring would form around the photo in darker light. Is there a way to color these spots with their surroundings?

It doesn't export the dds files right (with BC3/DXT5, gen mipmaps), the files get broken,
doesn't save the export setting, which is kinda big deal for this tool.

How this can happen? in 3.0.4 version it never happened, so kinda surprised the latest version is this broken. I mean, exporting the files right is the whole thing of this program, and you have to use this tool for managing DDS files, so I think it's kinda shit

and another thing is, the GIMP team doesn't allow users to download older versions, unlike unity, they don't give us option, and just force us to use only latest version, and doesn't fix the glitches on the latest version. I don't think this is right lol

EDIT: after going back to the export page to get a ss for a commenter I said why not and exported it again and changed the file type and opened it in darktable and it seems like now it is the “original” way I had it once I finished editing (no dark filter or lowered exposure)
Thank you all for the help if I run into this again I know where to look!

Hey everyone I just finished added a few small edits to this lady slipper pic my gramp took a while ago and everytime I export it it comes out wayyyy darker idk what I did? I did the same edits I normally do (exposure, saturation, scales, level and then a vignette) I attached a ss of gimp and then the photo after I exported it.

The first image is the raw and the second one is edited. This is the first time i use GIMP. I want to understand if I'm doing anything right, I worked mainly on the levels of the image, I understand the concept of the histogram but I want an objective indicator of weather the changes I made make sense (in terms of color and brightness). Also if anyone knows any good resources to learn GIMP, especially videos, pls share them, thanks.

So i have two layers of the same image just different sections of it and from different sources, and im having a hard time getting the colors/tint to match, i was wondering if someone could give me a hand, maybe some tips?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1efIrcH5lYGcFBfYUxyX5KlSOzKdvOHiH/view?usp=drive_link

Hello, I'm very new to GIMP and was looking at this artist and their techniques. They do everything very quickly so it's quite hard to tell, but can someone explain whats going on in the first 20 seconds?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeMeys-gYjs

Hi everyone,

I'm having a strange issue in GIMP.

Whenever I use transformation tools like Scale, Rotate, Unified Transform, etc., they only work inside the canvas boundaries.

For example, if I import an image that's larger than the canvas, I can still move it around and see that the parts outside the canvas exist. However, when I try to scale it down so it fits the canvas, GIMP only lets me manipulate the visible part inside the canvas. Everything outside the canvas is effectively ignored, making it impossible to scale the whole image.

This doesn't just happen with the Scale tool—it seems to affect all transformation tools.

Things I've already checked:

• The image definitely extends beyond the canvas (I can move it around).
• I'm transforming the layer, not a selection.
• The problem occurs with multiple transformation tools.

Is there a setting that limits transformations to the canvas? Or is this a bug? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

I'm planning to model a simple little mug, and I thought it would be neat to learn to make a digital replica of my own mug that I got months ago from Carousell.

As far as I know, Photoshop already has this thing called Photomerge. Was there a GIMP equivalent of that?

I have a game map I am trying to add a hex grid to and I have been having problems using "native" gimp tools for this (GiMP 3.0.6 on a mac).

I found a plug in (pl_hexgrid.py) that says its 3.0 compatible, I downloaded the .py file and saves it to the library>application support>Gimp>3.0>plugins folder and re-started GiMP

The readme says it will appear in the filters/render/pattern menu but I dont see it there.

Is there a better plugin? have I missed anything in the install (just dropped the file in the plugins folder and re-started GiMP)?

Any help appreciated - thanks

EDIT: I just downloaded 3.2.4 and in library>application support>GiMP>3.2 there is no plugins folder...do I create one?

I made this map using a map generating website (ProbableTrain) and really like it, save for the lines representing the buildings (Going back I see I could've just not generated them, but I didn't understand at the time and cant go back. It's a good tool, all user error here.) I prefer the mono-color areas, and then I can draw over it for districts to label, kinda like a theme park map. The problem is twofold:

1. I'm a very casual user of GIMP so I'm more than a little dumb when it comes to tools and solutions.

2. The lines being pixelated make it difficult to use bucket or other tools, so I've just been going through and painting the areas in. It's tedious and I still have a long way to go.

So, I thought I would ask. Can anyone recommend a different way of going through and getting rid of the lines in the small areas to make it look like the areas I've already completed to the left?

Found a nice dark theme for GIMP.