Avoid "save for web" in Gimp

Previously Gimp could directly open and save JPEG and PNG-images. Since Ubuntu 12.10 Gimp is upgraded and requires me to save via a "save for web"-dialog. I have several issues with this dialog and consider it a severe regression:

  • It does not open the location-dialog in the folder where the "current image" lives. Requiring deep clicking.
  • When chaning some details in the image, re-saving it as PNG or JPG requires me to go through all the steps instead of hitting a shortcut [ctrl]-[s].
  • When opening a JPG, gimp forces me to save the image as xcf; probably so it can retain information; which makes little sense, because the JPG it opened is already lossy (lost information).

Is there a (hidden) setting to revert to the previous situation or to tweak the current one?

Am I doing something wrong? I can hardly beleive that one of the most important usages of Gimp (preparing images for web) has such a severe lack of detailed finishing.

Is there a bug- or issue in the Gimp issuetracker that I am not aware of, which deals with these issues?


For my workflow here the definitely fastest way to safe an edited file back to the path it resides is using the "File -> Overwrite xxx" menu which appears after an existing file was edited:

enter image description here

To further speed things up we can also define a key shortcut for file-overwrite which, after removing the shortcut for file-save could also be Ctrl + S :

enter image description here


Gimp is freeware software made for linux, and the deep clicking you are mentioning, thats a common problem, because it returns you to the home folder, or any other folder you used last session. Thats a bug i think should be reported to the developers of gimp.

ctrl+s is to save it as a Gimp-project. When saving it as an image, you should export it, using ctrl+shift+E instead. Then you select what kind of image type you want, JPEG, PNG, BMP or what else on the list.

When openening a JPG-file, you open it in gimp as a project, and projects are by default as .xcf. Again, when doing small changes, you need to export it into a JPEG - like in photoshop. ctrl+shift+E, and overwrite your old image.

A smart thing could be to save the project with ctrl+s if you need to edit it, and then export it. Then you can edit texts and other things on the image by opening the project file, and then exporting it again, overwriting the old or making a new copy.