Work in progesss.

[Verbbaitum]

I am a work in progress! Just getting my feet wet in Inkscape. I try to watch tutorials to answer my questions, but there are times when they go right over my head. My knowledge is very basic. I'm hoping with this sites help you can teach an old dog new tricks.

I want to make one of my Lens To The Heavens images for my daughter's dental office. The background of the image appears white, but when I print it the image it's black. Also, I would like ot outline (stroke) the image. Don't seem to be able to grasp how to do that either. Any help would be appreciated. Please bear with me! lol!!!!!

[brynn]

Welcome to the forum!

I'm not familiar with "Lens to the Heavens" image.  If that has something to do with what you need to do with Inkscape, please explain.

Please tell us exactly what you want to do.  My best guess is that you need a vector file, and you only have the raster image (PNG).  Do you have an SVG file, or do you only have the PNG image which you shared?

[Verbbaitum]

Lens To The Heavens images are my images and logos that I print on backlit film that go on the side of fluorescent lights. You can see examples at gnatoutdoors.com. Most times I'm printing my own images, but I'm trying to do other logos, too like high schools and businesses. I think the image I provided is a png. As I said, when I import it and then try printing it, the background is black. How can I use Inkscape to make the background white on the image? I've attached another image/logo that I have the same issues with.

[Moini]

What is your Inkscape version? Check it in Help > About and copy the full version info here. The one you gave in the profile info does not exist.

[brynn]

If the background is white or transparent, and your printer is printing black, that would seem to be a printer problem, to me.

However, Inkscape is not strong with printing.  You could try using another software to print....well, I mean the PNG.

For the SVG file you attached, you could put a white rectangle the same size as the page, behind everything.  That might force it to print white?

To put an outline around the PNG that you shared, I can think of 2 ways.

First, since it's a PNG, Inkscape can't do much with it, because PNG is a raster format, and Inkscape is a vector editor.  So one way to add the outline is to convert it to vector using Path menu > Trace Bitmap.  Then you can add a stroke using Object menu > Fill and Stroke > Stroke Paint tab, and click the Flat Color button, which looks like this   

The other way would be to not convert it to vector.  Instead, you could use the Pen/Bezier tool to manually trace an outline, right on top of the imported PNG.  This would probably take a little longer, since there would be a bit of a learning curve with the Pen tool.

[Verbbaitum]

Thanks. I'll give those suggestions a try. I have another image where I have managed to outline the text, but I want to add an outline (stroke) to the Panther image (see attached.) How do I do that?

[brynn]

The same way I suggested for the first PNG.  After you convert the image to vector, you'll need to Ungroup it.  After that, you'll be able to select only the panther and add the stroke.

Or don't convert it, and use the Pen tool to draw the outline.

[Verbbaitum]

What if the image is already an svg?

[brynn]

SVG, like PDF (and some other formats) can contain both raster and vector contents.  You can use the status bar to help identify which objects are which.

With the Selection tool enabled, Ctrl + a selects everything in the file.  If you see "Image" anywhere in the status bar, that means there is an imported raster image (usually PNG) in the file.  Then you have to figure out which object is the raster image.  You probably have an idea about which one it is already.  But if not, the Tab key selects one object after another, and so you can cycle through the whole file, one object at a time, fairly quickly.  And just watch the status bar until you see "Image....".

Theoretically it's possible the raster image could be inside a Group.  So you might need to ungroup everything, to find it.

If the panther is already a path, then you can add the stroke like I explained earlier.