Become A Master Of Trace Bitmap In Inkscape

hey this is Brandon from sweater cat designs and welcome to the inkscape Master Series this series is for those of you who would like more advanced inkscape tutorials in each lesson of the series we'll cover a specific Topic in a lot of detail then we'll apply what we learned by creating a sample project in this class we're going to learn all about how to use the powerful Trace bitmap dialog to vectorize imported images and use them in our drawings for the project portions of the video we learned how to use Trace bitmap to turn an image into a logo and we'll learn a couple ways to use it for adding texture to our drawings for those of you who are already familiar with how Trace bitmap works you can find timestamps for all the sections in the description below which you can use to skip over the technical stuff and get straight to creating the project okay let's begin before we start using Trace bitmap you need to import an image that we want to trace so first let's go up to the file menu and choose import the image I'll use for this video is this butterfly image here I provided a link to the image in the description below so that you can use it to follow along you can also use a different image but be aware that the higher the contrast there is between the parts of the image the better the results will be okay let's import the image by double clicking it and we can just click OK here next we need to open the trace bitmap dialog to do this we can either go up to the path menu and choose trace bitmap or you can right click the image and choose Trace bitmap and the trace bitmap dialog we have three tabs single scan which creates a single path using a tracing of the image multi color which creates a group of paths allowing us to get a more detailed result and pixel art which of course has a vectorized pixel art let's first head back over to the single scan tab at the top of the single scan tab we have a list of detection modes that we can choose from if we choose one for example the default brightness cutoff mode as long as we have an image selected we can see a preview of what the tracing will look like at the bottom of the dialog if we click the apply button down here it creates a tracing of the image and this is all one big path so we can do things like change the color of it and we can simplify it we can also cut things out of it okay we can delete this path and select the image again back at the top of the trace bitmap dialog we have a threshold setting with the brightness cut off Trace bitmap detects areas of the image that are darker than the threshold and only creates the tracing using those areas as we increase the threshold we start to get more of the brighter parts of the image in the tracing decreasing the threshold does the opposite another thing we can do is invert the image giving us a tracing of just the brightest parts we also have these three details settings Speckles will ignore small spots in the image smooth Corners will smooth out the sharp corners of the tracing and optimize were joined together adjacent bezier curve segments in the tracing I find that changing these settings has almost no noticeable effect so I usually don't bother with them the last setting we have in here is this user assisted Trace option with this we can draw a path around the part of the image we want give it a fill color select both the path and the image and if we check user assisted Trace we can see that it only traces the part of the image under the path we created you can click apply then move the path out of the way now I have a tracing of just the butterfly okay I'll delete these paths and select the image again let's turn user assisted Trace back off with the next detection mode Edge detection it will attempt to create line Arc from the image with this we have an edge threshold setting we can change color quantization will first separate the image by colors then create a tracing the number of colors it uses is given by this color setting here the next mode Auto Trace doesn't give us a preview so we have to click apply to see the result this is similar to brightness cutoff but it makes the path the dominant color of the image for this mode we have two settings we can change but I find that changing them doesn't result in a very noticeable difference the final mode Center Line tracing also requires that we click the apply button to see the result this mode actually works better for vectorizing a line art image okay that's it for the single scan tab so now to switch over to the multi-color tab this tab will create a tracing that consists of a group of paths the number of paths it creates is given by this scan setting here the default value is eight so right now it will create eight pads also like with single scan we have some detection modes we can choose from this is what brightness steps gives us let's go ahead and click apply because multi-color performs multiple scans of the image it takes a bit longer than single scan okay here's the result as we can see in the status bar this is a group of eight paths we can double click the group to enter into it and access the individual paths increasing the scan setting will create more paths and give us a more detailed result and decreasing it would do the opposite we also had these three check boxes here the first one smooth will apply gaussian blur to the image before tracing it giving us a smoother result however it's a very subtle difference the next option stack will stack the scans on top of each other attempting to fill in any gaps if we do a tracing without stack checked we can see that the tracing is a few transparent Parts in it on the other hand if we do a tracing with stack checked most of the transparent parts will be filled in the final option remove background actually removes the brightest path from the tracing this is useful with images that have a white or very bright background as we remove the background for us let's finish up by checking out the other detection modes first colors allows us to get most of the colors of the image in the tracing Grace is basically a grayscale version of colors and whenever I try the auto Trace mode it causes the escape to crash so I'll just skip this one we can also use the user assisted traces option with multi-color and as you can see this adds a white background to the tracing so we can undo all of that select these again then check remove background before we click apply okay now that we have a pretty good idea of how to vectorize images with Trace bitmap let's take a look at some ways that we can actually use it in our drawings the image I'll use for the logo is this image of a mother and baby elephant and a couple of trees in silhouette you can find a link to the image in the description below in case you would like to use it to follow along if you would like to use a different image instead the main things we're looking for in the image is that the part we want to use is mostly a solid color and is quite darker than the rest of the image this will look best for the type of logo we're going to create okay so with the image imported into our document let's go ahead and open the trace bitmap dialog by right-clicking the image and choosing Trace bitmap alright so in the trace bitmap dialog you want to be on the single scan tab with brightness cutoff chosen as a detection mode and for this image I'm going to need to lower the threshold quite a bit in order to get rid of all of the background 0.090 looks pretty good so I'll click apply now we can move the tracing out of the way and delete the image and if we want to we can add the sun back to it I'll just simply go to the circle's Ellipsis tool hold Ctrl and create a circle in here and I'll make it black now we want to go to the select tool and select the tracing and the circle and go to path Union to combine them into a single path okay we can set the tracing aside for now let's work on some other parts of the logo first I'll switch back to the circle's Ellipsis tool hold Ctrl and create a large Circle here now let's switch to the select tool and duplicate the circle by right-clicking it and choosing duplicate let's make the duplicate a different color just so we can see it that will shrink it down some while holding shift and control okay we're going to cut this circle out of the bigger one but before we do that let's duplicate again for this one let's turn off the fill color let's give it a stroke by holding shift and clicking a color swatch the color doesn't really matter as we'll just be deleting the circle after we wrap some text around it let's hold shift and control and scale this one up some now we can select the center circle hold shift and select the black circle and go to path difference okay let's next switch to the text tool and create a text object feel free to type whatever you want for your logo I'll just go with inkscape Master Series in all caps we'll be cutting the text out of the black circle later but for now let's make it a color that isn't black so we'll be able to see it let's also go up to the controls bar and change the alignment of the text to centered this will make it easier to Center the text on the circle now let's go to the select tool hold Ctrl and scope the text up some next we can wrap the text around the circle with a stroke by selecting both the text object and the circle and going to text put on path then we can select just a circle click it again to get the rotation handles rotate it while holding control until the text is centered at the top let's click the circle again to get back to the scale handles hold shift and control and scale it so that the text is pretty close to centered in the black area next we can double click the text object to get to the text tool and change some of his features in the controls bar we can use pretty much whatever font family we want but I'll leave mine on calibri I'm going to click the spacing box here and add some spacing between the letters and the words okay when we had the text the way we want it we can turn it into a path by going to path object to path how to switch to the select tool select the circle with a stroke hold shift and control and scale it up until it runs through the center of the text we're now going to use the pattern long path path effect to put some kind of pattern along the circle at both ends of the text the pattern you use is entirely up to you I'll go with three stars so first I'll switch the stars and polygons tool and create a small star over here I'm holding Ctrl to restrict the angle of rotation I don't want a stroke for this so I'll turn it off by holding shift and clicking the Red X down here now I'll switch to the select tool and duplicate this star then we'll control and move it up here I'll shrink this one down a bit while holding shift and control I'm going to duplicate this one hold Ctrl and bring it down here now I want to put equal vertical spacing between the centers of these Stars I'll do this by selecting them all opening in the Align and distribute dialog and clicking this button okay to use our objects as a pattern we first need to turn them into a single path by going to path Union then just copy the path into the clipboard by pressing Ctrl C now let's select the circle with a stroke let's turn it into a path by going to path object to path then to switch to the node tool select all of the circles nose and click this button up here to turn them into symmetric nodes this will prevent pattern along path from warping the circle okay now we can open the path effects dialog by going to path path effects and click the plus button at the bottom of the dialog and then here let's click the icon for pattern long path okay in the path effects dialog let's click this button on the end to link it to the path we copied into the clipboard let's change the pattern copies type to single now we want to give this a fill color and turn off the stroke and because we use the link button we can scale the pattern by switching to the select tool and selecting the pattern Source path over here then scaling it up or down while holding shift and control okay let's select the pattern path here again and in the path effects dialog let's increase the tangential offset parameter until the pattern is where we want it near the text that should be good now we can finalize the path effect by going to path object to path okay to put a copy of this on the other side of the logo we can turn on snapping up here then go to advanced mode and enable snapping to object rotation centers now we can click the pattern path to get the rotation handles this snap is rotation Center to the center of the logo then we can duplicate the path and press the H key to flip it horizontally there we go right now let's cut the pattern paths and the text out of this black part first we need to select the text which is a group of paths at the moment let's ungroup them by right clicking it and choosing ungroup now we can hold shift and select both of the pattern paths then Union them all into a single path next I sold shift and select the black path and go to path difference and we can go ahead and delete the pattern Source path here as well okay now let's work on adding our tracing here to the logo first with snapping to rotation Center still enabled I switch to the circle's Ellipsis tool snap to the logos rotation center hold shift and control and create a circle in here now we can turn off snapping then switch to the select tool hold shift and control again and scale the circle up until it covers most but not all of the empty area let's lower the circle's opacity to about 50 or so just so we'll be able to see the tracing beneath it now we can move the tracing over here and scale it down to the size we want then we can hold shift and select the circle and go to path intersection we might for some reason get some extra parts left over outside of the logo to get rid of this we can switch to the pin tool and create a path around the extra parts let's switch to the select tool hold shift and select the tracing and go to path difference okay looking good let's not select both paths let's Union them together next we can add our ribbon with some text to the bottom of the logo for the ribbon let's switch to the square as a rectangles tool and create a rectangle over here for now we can make it black and raise the opacity all the way up okay let's go to the select tool and duplicate the rectangle move it over here then grab the center left scale handle and drag it in some let's turn it into a path by going to path object to path then switch the node tool select the two left nodes and click this button up here to insert a new node between them now we can grab the new node or control and drag it in some okay now let's go back to the select tool and duplicate this path flip it horizontally with the H key hold Ctrl and bring it over to the right side now we can select all three of these objects and use the Align distribute dialog to put equal horizontal spacing between their centers okay for the text let's go to the text tool and create a text object I'll type trace bitmap for this one and again we can use whatever font family we want I'll go with a nice script font like Pacifico there's definitely not enough spacing between the words though so I'll add some more now we can go to the select tool and scale it up while audio control let's change the color of the text then let's hold shift and select the rectangle here and then the line distribute dialog with less like the chosen as the anchor let's align them vertically and horizontally if necessary we can select just a text object and scale it up or down while holding shift and control next we'll use the bin path effect to bend all of this first we need to turn the text object to a path by going to path object to path then we need to select all of these objects and group them together by right-clicking and choosing group now let's go to the path effects dialog click the plus button at the bottom and click the icon for bin here let's go ahead and click the edit on canvas button here to show the green line that we can use for bending now in order to be able to bend everything evenly we need to select both the nodes of the green line then click this button up here to insert a new node at the center now we can select the new center node click this button up here to turn into a symmetric node then hold Ctrl and drag out one of the handles we don't want to bring them out too far as I find this will cause the ends to become warped when we bend it okay now we can grab the center node hold Ctrl and drag up to bend the group okay when we have it looking the way we want it we can finalize the path effect by going through path object to path now let's switch to the select tool and move the ribbon to about where we want it on the logo I'll resize it a bit now we can always that's like the other part of the logo and use the Align distribute dialog to Center them vertically due to slight warping from the bending it might not align them perfectly so we can select just the ribbon group and use the left and right arrow keys to adjust it a bit there we go okay next we're going to cut some parts out of the ribbon as well as leave a gap between the ribbon and the rest of the logo first let's ungroup all of the ribbon parts then I'll select just a large path in the center let's duplicate it and give it a stroke we're going to cut this whole path out of the main logo path as well as the two ends of the ribbon first let's lower the opacity of the path so that we can see exactly how much of the other pads that it's going to cut out I'm going to open the fill and stroke dialog then go to the stroke style tab make the stroke a bit thicker that should do it let's turn the stroke into a path by going to path stroke to path this gives us a group consisting of the stroke path and the fill path so we can ungroup them then you need them together okay now we're going to need to use three of these paths for each of the three parts we'll be cutting so first let's duplicate this path then let's hold shift and select one of the paths to cut go to path difference let's duplicate this path again hold shift and select one of the other paths and do a difference again for the third part we just use the original path here okay cool now let's select the text group and ungroup it then you need the paths together then we can cut the text out of the ribbon by holding shift and clicking the large ribbon path and going to path difference okay and it's entirely up to you whether or not to keep the circular part here under the ribbon but if we wanted to get rid of it we could switch to the pin tool and draw a path around it then switch the select tool hold shift and select the circular path and go to path difference all right now we can select all these paths and you need them together and we're pretty much done with the main part of the logo next we'll look at how we can add texture using Trace bitmap the first effect we can add with Trace bitmap is to give our logo a scratchy retro look to do this we first need to import an image that has a spreadsheet or a bumpy texture for demonstration I'm going to use this image of leather if you want to use the same image you can find a link to it in the description but in the image with a similar texture should work fine okay let's go ahead and import it let's switch to the trace bitmap dialog I lowered the threshold here quite a bit for the elephant image so I'm going to start raising it back up until I get something I like in the preview that should be good so I'll click apply and move the tracing on top of the logo and we can go ahead and delete the image now I'll resize the tracing just a bit now because the logo we created is just one big path we can simply cut the tracing out of the logo by selecting them both and going to path difference and our logo has a scratchy texture however let's pretend that our logo consists of multiple objects and possibly multiple colors in this case we will need to use inverse clipping to cut the tracing out of the logo to demonstrate I'll undo to get the tracing back select them both and go to object clip set inverse clip this will take a bit longer okay now we have basically the same result I'll release the clip by right clicking and choosing release clip then I'll do a difference on these two bets again okay next we can add a background to our logo and give the background a grungy old paper look first I switch to the square as a rectangles tool and create a large rectangle for the background let's raise the opacity all the way up turn off the stroke now use the fill and stroke dialog to give this a tannish fill color okay to apply an old paper look to this rectangle we'll need to import an image with a grungy type of texture I'll use this image of a dirty wall which I've also included a link to in the description now we can go to the trace bitmap dialog and adjust the threshold into we have the result we're looking for if the result seems a bit too dark that's okay because we can easily lower the opacity later to make it less intense all right I like how this looks so I'll click apply move the tracing out to the background and delete the image let's adjust the tracing so that it fits the rectangle a bit better and completely covers it now we can switch to the fill and stroke dialog and bring down the opacity sum if we keep the tracing black it will make the background look dirty and if we change it to White it would look more like the edges are old and fading I'll leave it up to you to decide which one you prefer but I'll leave mine white we can also duplicate the tracing flip it vertically with the V key and horizontally with the H key then adjust the sum so that it doesn't look too much like an exact copy of the other one now we can select both tracing paths and Union them together then we can select the background rectangle by holding alts and clicking inside the tracing path duplicate it by clicking this button up here hold shift and select the tracing path and go to path intersection then let's select both of these objects and group them together let's now select the logo and bring it to the top with this button up here then let's hold shift and select the background and use the alignment distribute dialog to align them vertically and horizontally I'm also going to change the color of the logo to more of a dark goldish color finally we can select the logo and the background and group them together and that should do it for our Trace bitmap master class as you can see Trace bitmap is an extremely useful and versatile feature and I encourage you to continue testing it out on various types of projects okay thank you very much for joining me in this lesson and I'll see in the next one as we mentioned briefly at the beginning of this video the third tab in the trace bitmap dialog is for vectorizing imported pixel art to demonstrate this I'll vectorize this pixel art image of some grapes if you would like to follow along by using your own pixel art it's important to note that when tracing pixel art Trace bitmap will create up to One path per pixel in the image because of this if you try to vectorize an image that is too large it can take quite a while to give an idea of what size to use this image is only 64 pixels by 64 pixels depending on your system you might be able to do this with a slightly larger image but I would definitely avoid going too much larger okay so in the pixel art tab the preview down here is pretty much useless as it doesn't actually show us what the result would look like to see the result we need to click the apply button here we go we can see in the status bar that is a group of 4096 objects this is the same as 64 times 64. so it created one object for every pixel in the image if we double click the group to enter into it we can modify the individual objects okay back in Trace bitmap at the top here we have some heuristic settings I'm actually not sure exactly what these settings do and I've tried different settings on various images but I haven't been able to see any changes if anyone watching this happens to know how these work and would like to shine some light on them for us in the comments that would be awesome anyway at the bottom we have two output options to choose from unlike with the heuristic settings changing this actually has a noticeable effect as we saw earlier the default option for annoy creates a group of paths consisting of One path per pixel he splines on the other hand will go a step further and combine all adjacent paths have the exact same color into a single path so if we click apply we can see that this group only has 829 objects if we zoom in some we can see some Thin gaps between the pads you can see this in the other tracing as well this is actually due to anti-aliasing and if we wanted to get rid of the gaps an easy way to do so is to duplicate the group we can still see the gaps if we zoom in a lot but they're much less noticeable now okay that's how we can vectorize pixel art with Trace bitmap thanks for watching [Music] [Music]

Channel: Sweater Cat Designs

Views: 31,946

Keywords: Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, Affinity Designer, vector, drawing, digital art, vectorize, import, wildlife, trees, sun, sky, silhouette, animal, mother, baby, path effect, Pattern Along Path, Bend, ribbon, stars, text tool, put on path, remove background, path operations, distressed

Id: Z39-QaDRHoI

Length: 28min 36sec (1716 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 15 2022