Hello again Rob! I cannot thank you enough for all the work you do on your tutorials, especially this one. It just so happens I need to turn some png flowers and petals into full color SVG's for an animation I'm working on---WITH very underwhelming hardware. Ugh. However, I think I can do it now with the help of you and this great tutorial! On the upside my entire system is getting custom rebuilt next month. YAY!! Anyway, keep up the good work and thank you again!
Hi 👋 😁 I personally think the Trace Bitmap feature in Inkscape is one of the best additions to the software. It makes things so much easier when converting images to use in your projects. However, you will be thankful on the upgrade because as it stands, TB is the most taxing thing to use on the hardware. As an extra bit of info, if the detail is not something that has to be perfect, you can use Simplify (In the Path menu if I remember correctly). This will take away most of the nodes for the shapes ie makes the shape more of an approximation of what you started with which in turn will ease the burden on the hardware. Better hardware = better results 😉 I am thankful daily that my content can help you and other artists. It really does put a massive smile on my face. Thank you ❤ PS Check the community tab of the channel in around 5 minutes. I have something I want to show you all hehe
@@ButtonPressGraphics I have pages of notes I take whenever I watch one of your tutorials, I must remember the "Simplify* option! Thankfully, these images are only around 47 kb, give or take but they do have a lot of colors. As I'm using them for a future animated overlay for my new youtube videos, they don't really need to be super detailed. I will check the community tab forthwith!! Can't wait to see the surprise!
@@MyssahLee I too also have many notes of what projects to try next or things I want to learn & I also sketch a lot. Some of my doodles end up becoming projects and others never see the light of day lol. There is no such thing as bad artwork, only an artist trying new things. Some work, some don't. It's all about the journey
Thank You Very Much! You are the First that explained Bitmap that even I can understand. I am trying to laser engrave a portrait and trying to get a silhouette with no background. I will give Your method a try. Thanks Again, Gregg
Hello Gregg. I have received a lot of great feedback on this video. Other videos tend to deep dive into the tool which can be sometimes overwhelming so, I thought I would simplify it into terms that everyone found useful. Thanks for your feedback. I wish you all the best #StayCreative
@@ButtonPressGraphics Thanks Rob, I am having trouble laser engraving wants to engrave a background instead of just a silhouette without a background. Not sure what I'm doing wrong? Any suggestions will be much appreciated. Thanks Gregg
@@1gdfoster1 When it comes to laser engraving or home printing, unfortunately I am no expert. However, I can share what I know. I believe you may have to do it in layers. For this, maybe using multiple scans with the bitmap map help. When you do this, you can select how many layers you would like, the default being 8. This will separate the 8 layers into ascending order from light to dark. So, depending on the design, you could always use Ungroup to single out each layer and then engrave each layer over each pass of the engraver. As I say, I am not an expert so I may be way off the mark as I haven't used an engraver before or produced any engraving projects for any clients. This is just what I would consider to be the most logical way to go about it. However, I can recommend Laser Everything. It is a youtube channel dedicated to laser engraving. So, with that said, from the design aspect of your designs, I can help you but for the laser side of things, I suggest giving him a watch too. Here is a link to a video I thought may help ruclips.net/video/w0sR1J3seRU/видео.htmlsi=QgBs3n3y7u7IyVic Again, I am sorry I could not be more help and give you a definitive answer that will help. However, I am sure that we can both (Myself & Laser Everything) get you to a place where you can accomplish exactly what you are aiming for my friend.
@@ButtonPressGraphics Thanks Rob, I will try the multiscan. I have notes on that from You tube. Thank The Good Lord for You Tube! I will let you know when I have succeeded. Thanks Again, Rob. You're The Greatest!!
@@1gdfoster1 No thanks are needed my friend & yes! RUclips is not all clickbait & music videos anymore. It is a regular fountain of knowledge. Besides, I am more than happy to help. Lastly, please do! I would love to see the work when it's complete. I can even showcase it on the channel if you like. Artists are better together #StayCreative
@@AneleBhengu-y3z It has since been updated my friend. Now it is simply called the Pen Tool. It is the 9th icon down on the left-hand toolbar. When you highlight it (hover over it with the cursor), it will say 'Draw Bezier curves and straight lines' followed by (B) signifying that pressing B is the keyboard shortcut. So selecting the Pen Tool or pressing B will get you there. Hope this helps. If not, do not hesitate to let me know and we can work out what has gone wrong for you 😁
I assume what you are referring to is lining up two separate shapes, one with fill and one with a stroke? In that case, I would say you are better off using one single object instead. However, in the other case, you can choose what layer mode the stroke uses in the Fill & Stroke menu under the Stroke Style tab. It allows you to choose things like having the stroke on top or under the fill. Hope this helps
the reason i ask is because i am setting up a drawing for laser cutting and the service provider i am using requested that objects to be cut have a red stroke with no fill.When i add the stroke to the fill it over laps which means that the laser would cut into the fill shape. This then means the resulting shape will be smaller then the hole in another cut peice that it is inteding to go into.@@ButtonPressGraphics
@@alexhetherington8028 Ahhh okay, I understand. I would suggest creating 2 shapes, one with fill but no stroke and one which has no fill and a stroke. You can now Stroke to path and line it up with Snapping enabled. If there is any overlap, you can manually tweak the corners. However, to be upfront, I rarely use Inkscape for rendering in regards to printing. I tend to use Illustrator for that.
@@alexhetherington8028 You can always use dynamic offset on a duplicate of you shape then use a copy to path>difference to cut a perfect hole in the shape and size you want. That would leave you with two paths that would be exactly correct. However, for the stroke I am not aware of a solution in Inkscape. I am sorry I cannot be of more help
That all depends what you would like to do with the file my friend. I will do a dedicated video on the export functions in the next couple of weeks to explain but for now... Say you want a PNG file (A graphic with a transparent background). I will explain the basics. Go to File> Export... & this will open the Export menu on the right-hand side. At the top you will have Image Size. (The resolution is what you selected within the Document Properties, shown by Width & Height) The DPI (Dots Per Inch) dictates the quality. A lower DPI is more pixilated whereas a high DPI is clearer but will affect the size of the image. At the bottom of the same tab you will see the file path (typically starting with C:\ & ending with bitmap.png) to the right of the path there is an icon of a folder. Click the icon and it will open your file explorer. From there, choose the location for the file and the file type from the drop down box at the bottom. Select PNG and hit Save. This will export the file with the chosen settings. To save it as a SVG file (which is the scaleable variation) select Plain SVG. When you save your project, it will save as an Inkscape SVG which is slightly different. I hope this helps but if not, please don't hesitate to email buttonpressgraphics@gmail.com & I can help you further.
Hello there, my friend. Firstly, I am unaware of any bugs where this would happen (but that does not mean it isn't one) so that has led me to think that it is likely due to the settings. So, with that said, review these settings: Make sure you have the correct mode enabled for your project (eg brightness cutoff etc) & the Live Preview is checked. Make sure that Invert Image is unchecked. Smooth Corners, Speckles & Optimise should all be checked. Use the Threshold slider to set the strength & keep an eye on the preview. Once you have it done, click Apply. Also note that the problem could be with the chosen picture. If the picture is very bright, the app may have problems distinguishing between lights & darks. If none of this has worked, then it is likely to be a bug that will need reporting to the dev team. If you need more help, reach out via email and I can assist you there. #StayCreative my friend
I am a total beginner so bear with me. I have been trying this on a relatively simple color image - four colors and strong, black outlines. Every time I try to use the color detection mode, the image becomes blurry and has missing lines. Doesn't seem to matter how many scans I set it to. Doesn't seem to matter if I change any other settings. Any idea what I am doing wrong?
There are many, many variations to the Trace Bitmap feature. It all comes down to the settings that you use. However, TB will never be perfect. Especially if your PC is quite low spec or you are using a highly detailed image (like 4k for example). It all depends what you need from your image.
Why can't you just scan for black? In that image, the black of the butterfly does not seem to be anywhere else. I use Gimp for getting vectors and that would be my first go to.
You can my friend. There are multiple different modes within this feature. This video is simply put together to show you how to use the Trace Bitmap. However, GimP is a fantastic bit of software. If you have your own methods, do want you find easiest.
@@ButtonPressGraphicslooking use Gimp and Inkscape almost as two sides of the same program but just bumped to 1.3 in Inkscape. What I am looking for is to take a vectored object and make the inside one object to engrave with a laser and the outline a different object to be cut with that laser. For that sort of work it is a very common problem. If there was a quick way to select all the nodes in a line, cutting and pasting is what I do, but getting them all and only that (often very complicated) line is a tricky issue and I am hoping to find something in new abilities of v1.3 to accomplish it.
@@freedem41 That sounds like quite the project. Unfortunately for myself, I have never used Inkscape for engraving or laser cutting so this is not a subject I can confidently help with. However, I know there are a lot of people that do use these programs for that exact reason. I wish I could help you more in that regard.
Unfortunately yes, like I said in the video, the more nodes there are, the more pressure it will put on your GPU. I have a video coming soon on Clipping so maybe wait for that as it may help you with a work around for those kinds of issues
When it comes to the Trace Bitmap feature, it is not perfect but the mode makes a big difference. Try experimenting with different modes. Remember that even when you use this feature, once you Object To Path via the Path menu, you can then edit any of the points with the node tool to rectify it. If you like, send me a picture via my email & I will be happy to advise you in that way my friend. Hope that helps #StayCreative
Thank you, thank you!!!
You are very welcome my friend 😁
Excellent and positive video.
Thank you so much my friend. If you found it helpful, I am very happy 😊
Hello again Rob! I cannot thank you enough for all the work you do on your tutorials, especially this one. It just so happens I need to turn some png flowers and petals into full color SVG's for an animation I'm working on---WITH very underwhelming hardware. Ugh. However, I think I can do it now with the help of you and this great tutorial! On the upside my entire system is getting custom rebuilt next month. YAY!! Anyway, keep up the good work and thank you again!
Hi 👋 😁
I personally think the Trace Bitmap feature in Inkscape is one of the best additions to the software. It makes things so much easier when converting images to use in your projects. However, you will be thankful on the upgrade because as it stands, TB is the most taxing thing to use on the hardware. As an extra bit of info, if the detail is not something that has to be perfect, you can use Simplify (In the Path menu if I remember correctly). This will take away most of the nodes for the shapes ie makes the shape more of an approximation of what you started with which in turn will ease the burden on the hardware. Better hardware = better results 😉
I am thankful daily that my content can help you and other artists. It really does put a massive smile on my face. Thank you ❤
PS Check the community tab of the channel in around 5 minutes. I have something I want to show you all hehe
@@ButtonPressGraphics
I have pages of notes I take whenever I watch one of your tutorials, I must remember the "Simplify* option! Thankfully, these images are only around 47 kb, give or take but they do have a lot of colors. As I'm using them for a future animated overlay for my new youtube videos, they don't really need to be super detailed. I will check the community tab forthwith!! Can't wait to see the surprise!
@@MyssahLee I too also have many notes of what projects to try next or things I want to learn & I also sketch a lot. Some of my doodles end up becoming projects and others never see the light of day lol. There is no such thing as bad artwork, only an artist trying new things. Some work, some don't. It's all about the journey
Great video! I like your clear instructions and advice. Thanks very much!!!
@@yilmadellelegnabebe4825 Thank you so much, I really appreciate it. #StayCreative my friend.
Thank you so much Sir Rob! I learned a lot today!
@@ArtbyArnel8291 It was and is, my pleasure 😊
#StayCreative my friend
Sir, in a word, " AWESOME!!!😁
Thank you very much my friend. I am glad you enjoyed it 😊
This was great! Thank you!!!!!
You are very welcome my friend. Glad you have found it useful
Thank you for this video. It is very useful and clear.
You are very welcome. I am glad you found it helpful. ##StayCreative
Thanks a lot man! Clear tut that saved my ass in a pinch :) cheers
@@sg4030 You are very welcome my friend. Glad I could help 😁
Thank You Very Much! You are the First that explained Bitmap that even I can understand. I am trying to laser engrave a portrait and trying to get a silhouette with no background. I will give Your method a try. Thanks Again, Gregg
Hello Gregg. I have received a lot of great feedback on this video. Other videos tend to deep dive into the tool which can be sometimes overwhelming so, I thought I would simplify it into terms that everyone found useful. Thanks for your feedback. I wish you all the best #StayCreative
@@ButtonPressGraphics Thanks Rob, I am having trouble laser engraving wants to engrave a background instead of just a silhouette without a background. Not sure what I'm doing wrong? Any suggestions will be much appreciated. Thanks Gregg
@@1gdfoster1 When it comes to laser engraving or home printing, unfortunately I am no expert. However, I can share what I know. I believe you may have to do it in layers. For this, maybe using multiple scans with the bitmap map help. When you do this, you can select how many layers you would like, the default being 8. This will separate the 8 layers into ascending order from light to dark. So, depending on the design, you could always use Ungroup to single out each layer and then engrave each layer over each pass of the engraver.
As I say, I am not an expert so I may be way off the mark as I haven't used an engraver before or produced any engraving projects for any clients. This is just what I would consider to be the most logical way to go about it. However, I can recommend Laser Everything. It is a youtube channel dedicated to laser engraving. So, with that said, from the design aspect of your designs, I can help you but for the laser side of things, I suggest giving him a watch too. Here is a link to a video I thought may help ruclips.net/video/w0sR1J3seRU/видео.htmlsi=QgBs3n3y7u7IyVic
Again, I am sorry I could not be more help and give you a definitive answer that will help. However, I am sure that we can both (Myself & Laser Everything) get you to a place where you can accomplish exactly what you are aiming for my friend.
@@ButtonPressGraphics Thanks Rob, I will try the multiscan. I have notes on that from You tube. Thank The Good Lord for You Tube! I will let you know when I have succeeded. Thanks Again, Rob. You're The Greatest!!
@@1gdfoster1 No thanks are needed my friend & yes! RUclips is not all clickbait & music videos anymore. It is a regular fountain of knowledge. Besides, I am more than happy to help. Lastly, please do! I would love to see the work when it's complete. I can even showcase it on the channel if you like. Artists are better together #StayCreative
I love it!!! Thank you!!
I hope you have fun using the feature. It can be taxing on your hardware but can save lots of time when tracing shapes. Enjoy 😄
Amazing video I’m glad I found your video, this will help alot!
That is great to hear. I am really pleased you have found it useful my friend. #StayCreative
Awesome video! Thank you. 🇦🇺❤️
Thank you so much. I am really glad that you found it useful 😀
Thanks ..... very informative!
You are very welcome my friend. I am very happy that you have found it useful #StayCreative
Very Good
Thank you my friend
Hi. I don't have the bezier tool option on my Inkscape. What can I use instead to select?
@@AneleBhengu-y3z It has since been updated my friend. Now it is simply called the Pen Tool. It is the 9th icon down on the left-hand toolbar. When you highlight it (hover over it with the cursor), it will say 'Draw Bezier curves and straight lines' followed by (B) signifying that pressing B is the keyboard shortcut. So selecting the Pen Tool or pressing B will get you there.
Hope this helps. If not, do not hesitate to let me know and we can work out what has gone wrong for you 😁
Thank you.
You are very welcome my friend 😊
Do you have any idea how to allign a stroke outer edge with the outer edge of a fill ?
I assume what you are referring to is lining up two separate shapes, one with fill and one with a stroke? In that case, I would say you are better off using one single object instead. However, in the other case, you can choose what layer mode the stroke uses in the Fill & Stroke menu under the Stroke Style tab. It allows you to choose things like having the stroke on top or under the fill. Hope this helps
the reason i ask is because i am setting up a drawing for laser cutting and the service provider i am using requested that objects to be cut have a red stroke with no fill.When i add the stroke to the fill it over laps which means that the laser would cut into the fill shape. This then means the resulting shape will be smaller then the hole in another cut peice that it is inteding to go into.@@ButtonPressGraphics
@@alexhetherington8028 Ahhh okay, I understand. I would suggest creating 2 shapes, one with fill but no stroke and one which has no fill and a stroke. You can now Stroke to path and line it up with Snapping enabled. If there is any overlap, you can manually tweak the corners. However, to be upfront, I rarely use Inkscape for rendering in regards to printing. I tend to use Illustrator for that.
So my problem is when I create a stroke because it overlaps it means the cut shape will be smaller than intended
@@alexhetherington8028 You can always use dynamic offset on a duplicate of you shape then use a copy to path>difference to cut a perfect hole in the shape and size you want. That would leave you with two paths that would be exactly correct. However, for the stroke I am not aware of a solution in Inkscape. I am sorry I cannot be of more help
How do you then save/export the layers? When I save it I just get a posterized image.
That all depends what you would like to do with the file my friend. I will do a dedicated video on the export functions in the next couple of weeks to explain but for now...
Say you want a PNG file (A graphic with a transparent background). I will explain the basics.
Go to File> Export... & this will open the Export menu on the right-hand side.
At the top you will have Image Size. (The resolution is what you selected within the Document Properties, shown by Width & Height)
The DPI (Dots Per Inch) dictates the quality. A lower DPI is more pixilated whereas a high DPI is clearer but will affect the size of the image.
At the bottom of the same tab you will see the file path (typically starting with C:\ & ending with bitmap.png) to the right of the path there is an icon of a folder. Click the icon and it will open your file explorer. From there, choose the location for the file and the file type from the drop down box at the bottom. Select PNG and hit Save. This will export the file with the chosen settings. To save it as a SVG file (which is the scaleable variation) select Plain SVG.
When you save your project, it will save as an Inkscape SVG which is slightly different.
I hope this helps but if not, please don't hesitate to email buttonpressgraphics@gmail.com & I can help you further.
When I click apply, the embedded image is still the only thing there, no vectors/paths or anything are created.
Hello there, my friend.
Firstly, I am unaware of any bugs where this would happen (but that does not mean it isn't one) so that has led me to think that it is likely due to the settings.
So, with that said, review these settings:
Make sure you have the correct mode enabled for your project (eg brightness cutoff etc) & the Live Preview is checked.
Make sure that Invert Image is unchecked. Smooth Corners, Speckles & Optimise should all be checked.
Use the Threshold slider to set the strength & keep an eye on the preview. Once you have it done, click Apply.
Also note that the problem could be with the chosen picture. If the picture is very bright, the app may have problems distinguishing between lights & darks.
If none of this has worked, then it is likely to be a bug that will need reporting to the dev team.
If you need more help, reach out via email and I can assist you there.
#StayCreative my friend
@@ButtonPressGraphics Looks like it only happened with autotrace on specific monochrome images.
@@coldReactive Ahhh, yes! That will do it 😄
I am glad you have got it sorted. If you ever need help in the future, I am always happy to help 😊
I am a total beginner so bear with me. I have been trying this on a relatively simple color image - four colors and strong, black outlines. Every time I try to use the color detection mode, the image becomes blurry and has missing lines. Doesn't seem to matter how many scans I set it to. Doesn't seem to matter if I change any other settings. Any idea what I am doing wrong?
There are many, many variations to the Trace Bitmap feature. It all comes down to the settings that you use. However, TB will never be perfect. Especially if your PC is quite low spec or you are using a highly detailed image (like 4k for example). It all depends what you need from your image.
Why can't you just scan for black? In that image, the black of the butterfly does not seem to be anywhere else. I use Gimp for getting vectors and that would be my first go to.
You can my friend. There are multiple different modes within this feature. This video is simply put together to show you how to use the Trace Bitmap. However, GimP is a fantastic bit of software. If you have your own methods, do want you find easiest.
@@ButtonPressGraphicslooking use Gimp and Inkscape almost as two sides of the same program but just bumped to 1.3 in Inkscape. What I am looking for is to take a vectored object and make the inside one object to engrave with a laser and the outline a different object to be cut with that laser. For that sort of work it is a very common problem. If there was a quick way to select all the nodes in a line, cutting and pasting is what I do, but getting them all and only that (often very complicated) line is a tricky issue and I am hoping to find something in new abilities of v1.3 to accomplish it.
@@freedem41 That sounds like quite the project. Unfortunately for myself, I have never used Inkscape for engraving or laser cutting so this is not a subject I can confidently help with. However, I know there are a lot of people that do use these programs for that exact reason. I wish I could help you more in that regard.
I use a six years old laptop. If I press the autotrace button, my computer freezes and I have to reboot it.
Unfortunately yes, like I said in the video, the more nodes there are, the more pressure it will put on your GPU. I have a video coming soon on Clipping so maybe wait for that as it may help you with a work around for those kinds of issues
It keeps making round corners faceted and flat
When it comes to the Trace Bitmap feature, it is not perfect but the mode makes a big difference. Try experimenting with different modes. Remember that even when you use this feature, once you Object To Path via the Path menu, you can then edit any of the points with the node tool to rectify it. If you like, send me a picture via my email & I will be happy to advise you in that way my friend.
Hope that helps #StayCreative