Finding & tracing a multi-layer image in Inkscape

so I had an idea I get a lot of emails and Facebook messages and whatnot for help with with tracing images and the biggest problem that I end up finding with the images that people want traced is the image itself they get frustrated because they can't make it work in Inkscape but usually the problem is is before you even get to Inkscape so I am going to show you how I find an image if I'm looking for something to trace in Inkscape to make it a design with the first step is finding the image so I go to Google here's my Google page and Easter is in a few weeks actually history's next week so I am going to do a funny try to find a bunny clipart I always add the word clipart because if you just add funny if you just do bunny you were going to get a whole bunch of pictures of money is granted they're absolutely gorgeous look at that one oh my god but yeah nothing that's going to be of any use to you so you we did the words of clipart at the end of it and then you get what you actually were intending to get first things first you don't want a picture that's got shading like like too much shading like this that's realistic even in something now if I look at something like this the problem you're going to it can be done it's really not a big deal but something to watch for is you see this shade here when you trace that in Inkscape that's going to be a different color even though it looks like shading that's it that's another shade of pink another shade instead of wait it's gray so you're gonna have to deal with all of those extra layers getting rid of them and whatnot which like I said it won't be a problem but especially if you're new to using Inkscape it's just going to add a level of difficulty that you probably don't need see something like this is adorable this would be a monster to try to do in Inkscape because of all the shading want me to show you what happens if I can my Inkscape has this weird little bug that I can't get rid of sometimes when I copy and paste images into it it just shuts down so if you see that happen that's why so if I take this and go to path trace bitmap oh I had this huge from something else I was doing sorry I go to colors I always take off smooth and add/remove background if I start with eight scans that's eight different colors just as a base point if you look at this it's it's kind of a mess you can drop this down to less colors and it just sort of all moshus together so you almost need all these extra colors and then you're going to have to weed through them all this is 12 scans that's a lot to be dealing with for this if I try to do anything with this I double click on it i ungroup them look at these layers that you got these are pretty useless so you're going to spend a insane amount of time trying to trace this image what I would end up doing is using these kind of layers these these ones that don't have a lot in them and try to work with them but yeah this would not be fun at all so that's why I don't do images like that if you try so like this is to you this could definitely be done it be it's a decent number of layers but his thumper wasn't really what I was looking for but let's try thumper quick trace bitmap we don't need 12 layers I don't think what I would do here is start going down in my number of scans until I can't deal with how much I lose anymore see there I lost the pink I kind of want the pink but let's see what happens you can always fill it in probably better off with something like this just coloring it in myself honestly but all right I would probably that's a lot of layers still but so this is my SVG playin group and see now that layer is actually pretty useful that's the gray layer Tim lay or maybe not so much that one doesn't look right be able to do a whole lot with it but the gray layer will be helpful let that one either say we want to fill this in but what you got to watch for is you see here if i zoom it if I hit ctrl and scrolling you'll zoom in see where this is broken right here you're not gonna be able to color in the tail unless you fix that that's a pain you can do it but it's kind of a pain if you're looking for something simple and quick that's going to cause you cause a little bit of heartache so hopefully if you're lucky you get a layer that's actually complete but it doesn't think we have one with this so we would have to complete that actually this one looks like it might be closed all right what I would actually probably do here get rid of all these whoops control-z undoes when you go too far what I'm actually do is probably take this put it on top of this one if you go you group them both together just drag a box around them go to object align and distribute I am line them vertically and horizontally and now they're back to being right on top of each other zoom in a little bit and then you can try coloring some stuff in use your paint bucket explain you the the colors the original colors I think I deleted it yeah you can try coloring some stuff in here like it still won't color it because it tells me that it's a I said killer Aiden okay so you have the tail but you could go in and color this and this them I just wanted to show you the image I'm not going to get into trace on that one right now but so that one could be done it's a little bit more work but it can be done if you find something the other thing to really really watch for when you're looking for an image is the size of the image you can check the size either weight on here if you look under my mouse it says 450 by 371 see this one right next to it says 1383 by 2254 they look the same they both look pretty crisp but if you bring this one to Inkscape versus this one this one is going to be a lot easier because it's got a lot more resolution you won't get fuzzy lines and all kinds of stuff like that bigger the picture the better 450 but like 500 by 500 is kind of medium looks like middle-of-the-road you'll see that a lot if it's a really basic image that'll work fine if it's something with a lot of detail that's not that'll work you can also if you click on the ones right under it here I'll give you the size there that's that's kind of small trying to find something relatively simple be fun to do because use a coloring book page and color them in kind of small this one is huge that's a 1500 by 11:59 all right so if I take this it's not a cute image but it's kind of good for what I'm doing all right so if I have this image right here we trace it how many layers can we get this puppy down to see there I just lost a whole bunch of color we don't really want to go that far so we're going to go with six hit okay so now I have two images the one on top say you can see through the white that there's no white it's clear that's the SVG that's what you want this is your JPEG you don't really want that but I leave it there just to use for colors and whatnot if you need them if you double-click on this image you'll break apart all the layers and you can see what kind of layers it were that's a really nice one it's a good coloring book image so these are the images that you ended up with these are were lower layers I hit control Z undo that I can put them all back together that's perfect what I would do is color in the individual pieces and then make a black background for this the probably the easiest way to do it I personally don't like Blue Bunny but so we'll change that but if you make sure you're not clicking on anything see right now I have this box around here it's selected I don't want anything selected so click anywhere else on the screen so nothing is selected get your paint fill bucket and now you can see if you hover over that it says fill bounded areas they've got to be bounded they have to be completely contained if there's any breaks in your lines like I was showing you before you can't color them in any more so always watch that but so we're going to color this bunny in and we're going to make it I'll make it so we're gonna make a lavender bunny I'll color well the blue pieces in just click on them see if this little one I'm going to zoom in on by hit ctrl and scroll I can zoom in and there's that one now if I hit the selector button up here I can back out a little and hit shift and click on all the pieces that I just colored in see them all highlighting you can see the little boxes getting added I think I have them all if I hit ctrl + + that you use them together so there's my my flooding layer welcome through the carrot orange again select off of everything put the paint bucket let's find orange down here we'll make our carrot orange give the selector hold shift and click on them all go plus plus and then we have a carrot will do ears at his nose I guess we'll do those pink ears ears nose shift-click them all so + + ctrl + + by the way I do everything I hate using the menu options with the mouse it's easier to use the keyboard shortcuts for me but whichever ways easier half Union if you see right next to here says ctrl + + that's like in design space the equivalent of weld it makes them all one path the nodes are rolled together can't be separated anymore we need his um I'm going to make this stuff all white but we need his little bunny tail and his belly and his feet and his teeth and we're gonna make them white but the problem is if I make them white you won't see them against the white background so I'm just gonna pick up a random color will make them yellow for the moment and I changed them to white later just so that I can see them and I make sure I get them all right make select each of those ctrl + + and that one over here we need this green will be the leafy part of the route of the carrot so we'll find a green whoops I see that I had this selected did you see what happened I still had the white selected so when I hit the green it changed to green if I undo that that's fine I felt that in green we have green thing there I have everything except for the black I think they have everything sometimes you'll find later that you don't not a biggie but okay so these are all my colored pieces now I want the background piece that's going to sit behind it off so what I'm going to do is get rid of all of these layers I'm going to save that one for the moment just in case that's the way I want get rid of all of this and you would take this you don't always end up with this nice clean image but when you do it really helps so if we click on that we go to path break apart and you see the whole thing turn black if there were any parts in here that weren't bounded if there were anything breaks in those lines this wouldn't work and then you have a lot more work on your hands but it works so well as well with the world now I Union them back together ctrl + + or Union and now this button right here is the node editor if I click this you'll see this is the cuts that your machine is actually going to make every one of these little squares is where your your blade is going to touch down by your machine if you have to look at this and it's like solid little squares and there's like 8 million points you're going to have problems when you bring it into the design space you're going to get that shockwave crash error and all kinds of stuff or I'll tell you the image is too big there's all kinds of stuff that will happen so that's something else to watch there is a way around that if I wasn't I see what will happen I can undo it if you have something that's a ton of cuts you can go to path simplify and it'll smooth them out for you but sometimes it doesn't do a good job and it oversimplifies it and you lose too much definition but we can try it so we hit simplify and now look what we have a lot less cuts so if you have an image that was too complex that's how you can simplify it let's see if it's going to work I might have to make that bigger again that actually would well you know what I need to wait space there and I joined those all together you see that I lost that white space okay best way to handle that would probably be this is a totally on-the-fly video by the way I had no idea what I was going to be doing so this is real life this is what happens you encounter things you did not expect I'm going to try to slice this out of it and see if I can or I could just use this blue layer I could do that too that might be easier this blue layer might be the best thing to use but let me try this if I put him here see what happens I can get that white shape whoops I drag a box around both of those layers and I tried difference so that didn't work at all I try sending this one to the bottom maybe so the blue ones on top but now if I DIF them I think them don't think this is what I want that's not working either we're just going to use the blue liner for the T here so now we have this cute little layer here and we do however want that tail filled in and we want this gone so first of all if I double click this you'll see all the nodes you can just drag a box around all of those hit delete and they're gone let's it back out a little bit I want that tail filled in mailed off so I'm going to go back make sure I'm not selected on anything I'm going to try this see if it works just pick a color you're going to fill that in now if I select that and the bunny and moving in those together now the tail is gone but I still have the other spaces that I do want so now I have my outer layer we're going to turn that black you want to fill it in you don't do anything with it you just click on the black it turns black now we're going to take all of this I'm going to stick it right on top of that you have to probably rearrange your pieces a little and what line make them exactly where they belong if they're not right whatever that's fine this yellow if you remember I wanted wait so now I just highlight it click white and now it's wait again so now this was my original picture this way I obviously make the bunny whatever color you want the big bright purple bunny a little weird but that's how I would trace that that image and that's also how I would find images so you want to look for things that are as big as you can get them things that don't have a ton of shading in them things that aren't going to be too many lines to deal with see anything real sketchy sometimes you'll see things that are better like it looks like a hand sketched image kind of and that just turns into a nightmare so hopefully that helps a little bit on the tracing side of things see like this this would be ugly it's it's it's 593 by 370 middle-of-the-road size-wise but I can see already looking at this this would be hell if you bring this over to to Inkscape you're not metal joining with it first of all you have areas over here that are not bounded so you couldn't color it in to begin with and you have a call these little tiny dots in here that your machine would pick up as separate us so it would just make it insane see you have to when you look at these images you have to look at them sort of as your machine would look at them instead of saying well it looks pretty simple it's black and white it's relatively you know it's not itty-bitty it's not like a thumb print it seems like it should work it's really not going to but that kind of comes from practice after you look at these things times you'll start to see which ones are gonna are going to work out for for the best and which ones aren't so hopefully that helps if you have any questions give me a shout and we'll talk to you soon

Channel: Wendy Edwards

Views: 33,280

Keywords: Inkscape, Design Space, Cricut, Silhouette, SVG, cut file, vector, trace, clipart

Id: ZcFRX2jXIDM

Length: 19min 0sec (1140 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 20 2016