"Teach Em To Fish" Manual Tracing - Lesson 1

[tlzimmerman 11]

OK guys here it is lesson number one on how to manual trace.  I am going to hopefully do 1 or 2 of these a month for awhile to build of a knowledge base on how to trace with Inkscape.  I use inkscape in the video because it applies to everyone, but these same principals and tools can be applied with other vector programs as well.

Attached are the original gif so you can try yourself, as well as my .eps and a png so you can see what i came up with.  The idea here is to NOT use an auto trace program, do it manually.  The idea behind this is to learn and be able to do this type of thing yourself.

Here is the Video link 

http://www.doublezdecals.com/images/forumposts/VectorChallenge01/VectorChallenge.htm

.  It is a large file and will take some time to download you have to be patient, this is also effecting the performance of my personal & business hosting service.  If you would like to I would accept donations for doing these and hosting them, though I want to make them free for everyone.  If you would like to donate send me a private message and I can give you my info.

So the idea is do it yourself, save it as an eps and a png and post it up, so we can all learn from eachother.  If you have other ideas how to do it other than what I posted in the video.....please share!  Remember experience guys, this is lesson one so I am just trying to get a basic starting one before we try things harder.

Hope everyone enjoys it and learns from it, the video may not be perfect but I think it should help a whole bunch.  Any questions let me know!.

funnysun.eps

funnysun.eps

[ff-extreme 6]

Thanks for the lesson very helpful!

[tlzimmerman 11]

Bumping this up for the morning....I posted it kinda late last night and I know quite a few people who wanted it done, so here it is!

[desertdog10 0]

That's wonderful!  Just what I needed.  THANK YOU!!!!  :thumbsup:

[tlzimmerman 11]

This got buried already, Maybe nobody noticed I had posted it but I had alot of interest in the other thread about it, and now only 100 views in several days and many fewer video views.  I will bump it up here again in case the people who wanted it haven't noticed.

[Guest stunad, jr.]

I checked it out and is very informative.

THANKS for taking the time and efforts to make it!!!!

  Maybe one of the mods will see the value in it and make a sticky.  I would also post this in the inkscape forum.  My 2 cents

[tlzimmerman 11]

Yeah, I thought about putting it in the inkscape and instructional sections, maybe I will go ahead and do that, the problem is that I was hoping people would give the graphics a crack and post them up, and wanted that in a centralized location instead of several threads.  I will think about finding a way to do both.

[mars 45]

Great video!  I'll try my hand and post the results when I get something decent looking out of it.

-Mike

[midwaste 4]

I think about sending everyone who posts a file requesting a vectorize to this thread...I should start that.

Keep it up, man!  Teach a man to fish indeed..

[tlzimmerman 11]

Looks good, you did all the colors, which is impressive. 

[painteddesigns 0]

I just wanted to LYK how great this tut is.  I still havent quite figured it out but, I am working on it.   Thanks for doing this.

Barbara

[99v8miata 3]

Thanks for lesson one.

Dave

[roketa36 0]

Thanks for the lesson. I had a guy inform me it was here today when I had a vector request I couldnt do for some reason. Now I know The trick to using the manual tracing tool on curved areas which would have saved me about 45 min today and some people form having to help me with the image today.

Thanks again

Tom

[jimbob06 0]

here is my try

sunnyfunny34.eps

sunnyfunny34.eps

[etchworks 0]

THANKS !!!!    that tutorial was a great help. I appreciate it.

[johnh 3]

very thankfull for the help and video. But lets say i make mistake when i try to kinda back up one line to fix i delete or remove all my lines and have to start from scratch , unless which is also likely im missing something can someone explain maybe,

[johnh 3]

ok nevermind gotta pay more attention to detail when learning and not kinda look at the pic. i wasnt finalizing the paths seperatly by using the right click properly. 

[Hockeymom 0]

THANK YOU!!!  This is amazing.  It will definitely take time to learn, but I love having the knowledge.  I don't cut alot of graphics.  Mostly lettering, but this will definitely give me more options.  Again, I can not thank you enough for your time in sharing your knowledge and teaching me to do this myself.  ;D

[yesrno1 6]

This may sound stupid, but where can I find the pen tool in inkscape portable? So that I can try this out.

[Truckntran 0]

I tried to look at the tutorial, at my local library on WIFI.. WHen you DO something, it goes so fast I can't see what you are doing, but when you have a text box, it takes forever to get to the next thing..(possibly a speed problem on my end?) ..In spite of that it was a great learning tool, think I will give it a shot, might even download inkscape too. I have been tracing in signblaster using paint to modify the images to what I wanted, this looks easier.

In any case, THANKS!

[tlzimmerman 11]

Yeah the video is not perfect, and I'm sorry if you don't like waiting so long on the text boxes, but I think its worth what you payed for it! LOL  I tried to make it slow down on the clicks, but didn't get it done so well, and I wanted to give everyone plenty of time to read and reeread if needed.  It has a pause button down below, and a slider so you can use that if you would like!

[chevytruck85 0]

Thanks a bunch for the teach them too fish lesson , it a was a tremendous help,thanks again .

[MacGrafix 5]

So when is the next lesson?

:thumbsup: ;D

[tlzimmerman 11]

So when is the next lesson?

:thumbsup: ;D

When this slow down and I get time to do it.  So....hopefully never! LOL

I need to do another one you are right.

[blakdogs 0]

This is JUST what I needed...thank you so much for taking the time to do this.  Here's my rendition of the "sun" file.  Thank you again!  I hope to be able to learn enough to be able to contribute at some point in time!  :~}

BTW, I found it difficult for some reason to change the stroke color from the fill and stroke box.  So I found that if you right clicked on the color palette at the bottom you could choose your stroke color from there.  Then I found that if you right click on the object you're tracing, you can get to the fill and stroke box a little quicker to change your stoke width.  Might be helpful to someone else in the future! 

Lori