This is a timeline of Krita’s history. The project, starting out as a patch to Gimp, continued as KImageShop, never released as Krayon, ending up as Krita, Krita’s history goes back to 1998.

Unreleases

1998

1999

Author: Michael Koch 
Date:   Tue Jun 8 11:57:20 1999 +0000

    added new app KImageShop
    
    It will be an image processing application for KOffice

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

As Part of KOffice Releases

The KOffice website was first implemented in php, then moved to a CMS. The php-based website was taken down and later on removed from KDE’s subversion repository. The cms-based successor of the koffice.org website was taken down in an act of vandalism by the last remaining KOffice developer. This means that for the KOffice part of Krita’s history there are no direct links to announcements and changelogs anymore. A backup of the php-based website is is available on github.

2005

2006

With Krita 1.5, support for color management arrived. High channel depths (16 and 32 bits float), and color models like CMYK, L*a*b, LMS and a dedicated simulation of watercolors, scripting in Python and Ruby using Kross were added.

2007

2008

We did a lot of coding, but no releases were made.

2009

KOffice 2.0 was long in the making. The port was very difficult, even though we got off to a good start. And the 2.0 release was not usable in any real way, it was labeled as a “tech preview”. With Krita 2.0, koffice.org moved to a new website, and there is no backup of that at all. Fortunately, we started running our own website, first krita2d.org, then krita.org when that url became available.

  • 2.0.0: 28-05-2009, dot.kde.org story
  • 2.0.1: 20-06-2009, dot.kde.org story
  • 02-12-2009: First sponsorship drive to fund Lukáš Tvrdý. dot.kde.org story. We realized that there were just too many bugs and formed a plan to let Lukáš work on Krita full-time for a number of months. Lukáš has already done his University thesis on Krita brush engines, and now focused on bugs, polish and performance. The results were good: Krita was once again getting usable. And with 2.1, we had our own website!
  • 2.1.0: 24-11-2009, krita.org, dot.kde.org story. Krita 2.1 was stable, but slow, and we were still missing features we had in 1.6. There were some exciting new features, too, like the new brush engines from Lukáš’s thesis work, a macro editor and filters based on OpenGTL

2010

Krita 2.3: Chagall Release

  • 2.3.0: 30-12-2010, krita.org This was the first end-user ready version of Krita. Or so we claimed.

2011

As Part of Calligra Releases

2012

Krita 2.4: Moebius Release

2013

2014

2.8: Ready for Windows!

2.9: The Kickstarter Release

Krita Releases

Krita 3.0

This version implemented the Animation components and ported Krita to Qt5

Krita 4.0

This version improved Vectors, Text Tool and Scripting.

Krita 4.1

This version improved Reference Images Tool, Sessions and performance.

Krita 4.2

This version brought HDR support, gamut masks and performance.

Krita 4.3

This version brought new filters, improved brushes, watercolor brush presets, first beta on Android and ChromeOS, snapshot docker, the magnetic selection tool is back.

Krita 4.4

This version brought new generators for Fill layers, SeExpr and updated filters.

Krita 5.0

This release brought in the new resource management system, improved gradients, a new smudge brush, the mypaint brush engine, an overhaul of the animation system, a storyboard editor, a recorder — and much more.

Krita 5.1

This release made it possible to work on multiple layers, TIFF and PSD file support was improved, support for JPEG-XL added, Vc was replaced by XSIMD, improving performance, especially on ARM chips, a new Enclose Fill Tool and updated support for touch controls.