Trace Bitmap Inkscape - Quickly Digitize Your Drawings

Do you need to get your pencil drawings and sketches into a digital format quickly? As much as I love the accuracy and precision of the Bezier Pen Tool, the Trace Bitmap function wins every time for speed!
In this video I demonstrate the basics of Trace Bitmap on one of my own sketches and show you how quick and easy it is to make great looking digital art from your pencil work!
0:00 - Sketching and inking
2:22 - Importing the photo of the finished art in to Inkscape
2:54 - Opening Trace Bitmap
4:13 - Brightness Cutoff version
7:30 - Auto Trace Version
8:30 - Comparing the two versions
9:41 - Final thoughts and tips

[@petrolvectors]

I get back to basics with a quick car sketch and then import it to Inkscape for some digital ink the easy way but will it win me over from my beloved Bezier Pen Tool? 🤔

[@robertmcmahon823]

Great to it going from a drawing to a svg , and the car looks cool

[@petrolvectors]

Thanks Robert, I’m working on another video on the iPad going from vector to vinyl, eventually I would like to do big wall art pieces in vinyl but still working things out!

[@BlackCat_2]

Thanks! This looks useful for digitizing my son's drawings. I've done one by tracing manually so he could have it on a shirt and he was thrilled. I want to do many more. Heidi

[@petrolvectors]

Hi Heidi, thanks for the comment, yes this seems to work well and with a bit of extra effort tweeking the settings you can get great results. I will be doing a full colour one next I think, thanks, Dan

[@beyblade8512]

Hi. I’m new to this. I am trying to use the trace bitmap feature to digitize a drawing. However a preview is not generating. There’s no white preview box at all. It’s solid black. I’ve tried changing all the parameters and updating preview and still no preview. Is there anything else I can do to get a preview to load?

[@petrolvectors]

Hi! Thanks for getting in touch, hmmm not sure what’s gone wonky for you here, off the top of my head I’d say perhaps you haven’t got the image selected with the move tool? It’s on the canvas but not selected so the trace has nothing to preview? I’m leaving for work right now but I’ll have a look and go through the process and see if we can get you going as soon as I’m back 👍

[@petrolvectors]

Just had a look at it and yes I think you don't have the image selected, try selecting it and then run the trace bitmap and you should be good. Hope this helps, I am working on new videos, if there's a topic you'd like me to make a video about let me know 👍 Dan