Photo to score

[woodgc]

Good Morning all you Glowforger’s. I have some photos that i would like to turn the outline of them into score lines so I can paint them like I would like. I use Inkscape. Does anyone know if this is possible? If so can you provide me instructions on how to accomplish this? Have a GREAT weekend and Thank YOU. Grover

[deirdrebeth]

Yes - ish. There’s going to be some fiddling required.

Edit them in your raster program until the majority of the lines showing are the ones you’re going to want to score (brightness/contrast + erasing)

Copy the image into Inkscape
Click on Path > Trace Bitmap
Click OK
Drag the new vector art off the raster
Decide whether it’s worth messing with the settings in the Trace Bitmap, or just manually delete the nodes you don’t want
Import into the UI

It’s pretty simple instructions, but the detail work to get it “just right” can suck away an afternoon Have fun!

[woodgc]

THANK YOU so VERY much Deirdrebeth,

GREAT instructions. Only one question. What is a raster program?

THANK YOU again
GREAT reply
Grover

[linefeed]

(A raster program is something that generates images instead of vectors. Photoshop kinda stuff.)

[rbtdanforth]

@woodgc

Does anyone know if this is possible?

The Inkscape trick works , but I get better results with Gimp, Inkscape is a vector program that will use rasters while Gimp is a raster program that will use vectors. I think of them as almost one program as each will fill in where the other is weak.

With Gimp you can choose a part of the image to change while not touching the rest by what they call masking (for example everything red) and you can save that outline as a path, and then export the paths as Svg vectors.

Pixels are like square boxes and Inkscape has trouble distinguishing the staircase of pixels from actual changes in angles. A raster is a stack of of pixels so Gimp has a much easier time recognizing the changes in direction vs actual change in direction. Both programs are a bit of effort to learn but once you have them down they have great power in doing your designs.

[woodgc]

Thanks, I have photoshop.
Grover

[woodgc]

THANK YOU Rbtdanfoth,

I also have Gimp. I’ll look at Gimp and see what I can figure out. Not sure what to do as far as just how to get the outline, I’ll see what I can figure out.

Keep Smiling
Grover

[rbtdanforth]

@woodgc

I’ll look at Gimp and see what I can figure out.

I have more extensive notes here…

Inkscape gradients

Ok! I walked through several examples of things to know If I got a bit silly at the end. First you open the svg in gimp and get a lot of options: [shad-1] This one was big to start with but 1600 or 1800 x value up to 10,000 will give a lot of resolution. Import paths turn vector lines into Gimp paths, merge paths makes them all one and not as useful usually. You can build selection sets easily enough yourself of course, and put new paths along those selection sets as in: [shad-2] Once I …

Also here…

Doing the offset thing in Gimp

That offset in the new Glowforge GFUI works really well. So well it has made me hate trying to accomplish it in Inkscape. error-> So I have been using Gimp and resizing the image by enlarging the mask and scaling to the mask. You can use the mask to create a path and you can use the path to add or subtract from the mask and all sorts of special effects from a line along the path to text along that path. So I take the image and create a mask to the size of the image and then under Selection, …

(the way things worked in the GFUI has changed some since then)

[woodgc]

THANK YOU rdtdanforth,

Great instructions. You are a blessing.

Have a GREAT weekend
Grover