Apparently you have to compile from source to get the high-bitdepth functions for now, but I haven’t had time to breathe lately much less fiddle with software to find out first hand. It’s really going to be nice to have an alpha slider in high color depth… RawTherapee is nice, but I miss having photoshop-esque levels tools.
I don’t have the time/energy/motivation to play with GIMP 2.8 right now (looking for a new job is the worst job EVER) but I’m intrigued… I’ve compiled GIMP before and don’t remember it being too difficult. I think it takes quite a while to complete since there’s so much code, but I don’t remember having to fight through the process like with some other packages. I wouldn’t be surprised to find it’s somewhat unstable if the functionality is that new however.
And on top of that, I’m REALLY liking RawTherapee now. It is missing lots of tools that are in GIMP, but it’s also got lots of adjustments that GIMP doesn’t have. So I think I’ll be using both even after I get a hi-color depth version of GIMP up and running.