Taking the lines out of a hand written recipe

I’m SURE this question has been asked a thousand times but I’ve searched thru the posted articles and can’t find anything with instructions relating to Inkscape. I am NOT a techie person and have a hard time figuring things out but I’m getting there with Inkscape slowly but surely! Would love to learn how to take the lines out of a handwritten recipe if anyone can point me in the right direction? Thank you, wonderful people!! :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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A picture might help. Not sure what you mean by “lines”…

Do you mean it was written on ruled paper?

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You would likely not do it in Inkscape…it’s going to be a raster image. You can use something like GIMP or Photoshop to remove the background. (And if it’s a ruled page, some hand work is going to be required.)

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Yes. It’s written on lined paper. I am not familiar with Gimp or Photoshop to that degree. Sounds like I’ve got more learning to do.

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If you post it someone might be feeling generous and help you out this time so you can get going into his project while you learn how to do it yourself…

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You will need to use a brush tool to “paint over” the lines with the background color (which should be white.)

You can very often get rid of most of them by playing with the color balance (contrast and exposure.)

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Here’s an example video on the process:

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Really?! That is so nice! I will post them in a sec. Thanks for the suggestion!

Well, here are the photos incase anyone would like to help. I so appreciate all the tips and tricks I’m learning here! I suppose it may be a good trade off for some great recipes if anyone’s interested?! :rofl:

Thanks again!!!

depending on which program you end up using see if there is an exchange/swap function.

you pick a color and then pick the one to change it to.

I know I have used that someplace but so long ago I don’t recall the program.

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Before anyone starts on this, we need to know a few things: 1) do you need the color retained? 2) what size (inches) and dots per inch (dpi) do you need–and can you tell of the dpi and size of the image on your computer?

Someone might do a bang-up job yet present you with an unuseable file for your intended use. So, if the file that arrives on someone’s computer is 5"x7" and 72 dpi, but you need 5"x7" and 300 dpi, then the returned file will either be too small, or too coarse to use.

Sorry, a quick edit: if you dont’ need the color information, then the job is a lot easier.

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I’m planning to print on an 11x15” bamboo cutting board. Would like to put the family name at the bottom, but I can do that part at very least! Lol! Maybe put a little symbol or something at the top. I imagine about 9x11”? That’s just an estimate. I hope this helps! Thanks for looking at it!!!

Oh! And I use the settings 1000/100/340/0.313.

And color doesn’t matter. Ideally, I’d just like to retain the black handwriting.

I hope those were the answers you were looking for? I sometimes don’t know the terminology. Getting there tho, thanks to you all!!!

Yes, that helped quite a bit. I’m going to have a quick go of it, just to see how practical it is. BRB

One last question adn then I’ll post the results: What resolution will you use? At 340, the handwriting section of the Gingerbread is either 9" x 12.6 or 7" x 9.8". (I don’t remember trhe GF presets for engraving…) *a few minutes later, I remark: * I’m not even sure why I asked this question; I have 3 projects in mind. Go ahead and answer it anyway.

For engraving handwriting you should use the “vary power” setting, not “use dots”. I’ve digitized my signature and found the results were much more accurate/lifelike.

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Oh my gosh. Thank you SO much!!! :heartpulse:

Oooh. Lordy. I just don’t even know how to answer that. I have been using those settings for every board I’ve engraved so far and they’ve turned out wonderfully IMO? My resolution is now set to 100% because I couldn’t get rid of the error msg before. Does that answer it? lol! :upside_down_face:

One other option you have…I think I remember seeing you post somewhere else that you are starting your GF business, so this option can come in handy if you will be doing a lot of handwriting projects (I apologize if I got you mixed up with someone else).

You can make a font of your own handwriting and then you can just type the words in that you want. Again, this is more useful if you will be doing this over and over again with different words but the same handwriting style. There are a number of websites that let you do this, and it’s pretty simple really. There are free ones, but the paid sites are typically $5-$20 to do it. Basically, you print out a template, write each letter clearly (using a thicker pen will be good for an engravable font), then you upload to the site and voila. Sometimes a bit of cleanup in Photoshop or Gimp before uploading can help.

Below is an example of a font of my handwriting I made-it’s a font, so I can type whatever letters I want in. I actually made it probably a decade+ ago while in graphics classes for landscape architecture. I was working on my Master’s so I was totally over having to hand print all of my assignments-when one professor assigned a research paper and told us we had to hand print the entire thing to practice our drafting, I made the font :grinning: (and I did fool him and get an A :wink: )

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I have tried to use the vary power thing but it said those settings were not ideal for the project I was working on. I could try it again with this one, I suppose?