Inkscape

With the Tile Clones dialog, you can trace anything by anything, in any way imaginable. If the original tile is a group, you can unset paint on some objects on the group while others (e.g. highlights or shadows) will retain their original colors, unaffected by trace coloring.

The new Trace tab in the Tile Clones dialog can change a number of parameters of clone tiles based on the parameters under the tile, i.e. in the drawing that the tiling overlays. The simplest way to use it is to trace color-to-color, i.e. set the color of each tile the same as the averaged color under it. You can also trace R, G, B, or H, S, L channels separately.

The new Unclump button in the Tile Clones dialog removes the local "clumps" in a tiling, making it look more even and man-made (without losing the randomness). Notice how the contrast and detailedness of the dot pattern improve as you apply unclumping repeatedly (top right) - even though unclumping is unaware of the background image that was traced by the tiling, it seems to bring out more image details that were "hidden" in the random scattering. You can also apply unclumping to regular tilings, converting them from "newspaper print" to "old engraving" (bottom right).

The new Color tab in the Tile Clones dialog can create an exciting variety of color landscapes, with any amount of randomization, gradual change, or per row/per column alternating. Note the new HSL color sliders (replacing the old HSV). For this to work, the original tile must have fill or stroke unset via the Fill&Stroke dialog.

Thanks to Richard Hughes, Inkscape 0.42 has a completely redesigned text layout code. As a side effect of this work, many serious bugs in i18n text are now fixed. Ed Trager has tested Inkscape CVS with many scripts and submitted a new i18n.svg example file, shown on this screenshot.

The new Gradient tool offers a much more convenient way to create and edit gradients than before. Now, the handles of linear and radial gradients are displayed right on canvas, where you can select, drag, nudge, merge, or style them. The Controls bar for this tool shows a number of controls that act on the selected gradient, as well as the list of all gradient definitions in the document. Note that the Fill and Stroke dialog shows (and lets you change) the color/opacity of the selected gradient handle.

One of the most important new features in 0.42 is the support for flowed text - text that can flow within a rectangle or any other shape. You can edit the text or the shape, and the text is reflown automatically. Also in this version, you can select any portion of a text object and assign any style to it (for example, using the new Swatches dialog shown in this screenshot).

Inkscape 0.42 provides support for running extensions - external programs or scripts (Python, Perl, and Ruby are supported) that can do anything to your SVG document. Aaron Spike has written a lot of cool effects in Python, including path interpolation, randomization, recursive generation, visualization of handles and points, etc. If you have an idea of some cool visual effect but don't want to learn to program Inkscape itself, go to Aaron's page to get an idea of how to create an extension.

This screenshot demonstrates the new capabilities of the Align and Distribute dialog (baseline alignment and distribution, randomizing, unclumping), as well as the new Grid Arrange dialog. Note the small square marks at the selected text objects, indicating the start of the baseline.