Hi I am using Inkscape for the first time after using Illustrator for many years. I am trying to take photographic images and vectorize them without turning them into total cartoon blobs and I cant seem to get it to turn out how I want with the trace bitmap feature. I finally managed to get an image somewhat close to what I want it and when I try and delete the vector points I dont want, they do not delete. Does anyone know why this is? I try to select just a part of it to delete but it selects the entire thing. Is there a direct selection tool like in illustrator? Please help: Thanks

For a colour trace, each colour is a separate object, and those objects are grouped together, so the first thing to do is ungroup the trace.

For a (ungrouped) single colour, the node tool will select elements; drag over an area of nodes, or ctrl-click a number, and press delete.

This may be an inappropriate suggestion (i don't know actually) but have you considered more manually vectorizing it?

i.e instead of using the auto trace functions.... trace it yourself!
You will gain new skills and develop faster by virtue of the practice you get doing this.

Ie instead of using an auto trace function to reduce the image for you.... first palette reduce the image manually in your raster application of choice...
i use paint shop pro... only because i find it easy to copy and paste palette colors in this app....(although it could be improved)....

Anyway what i do is first take it to 256 colors (paletted) then save... often you will need to reduce it to 30 colors approx for it to be optimised for vector.
But doing this in one bite often results unavoidably in much important data being shreaded and weird colours appearing....

So i take small bites reducing it further and frequently un-doing until i reach the point where important data starts being eroded... i then go about manually consolidating colours by first copying obviously very similar colours together.... often you may have 6 white shades that are all almost identical even though important colours are being stripped out by the auto reduction so manual is necessary sometimes after a point....
also copying the colour (to save it) then copying say bright green to it to see where it is can help...
anyway when you get to your target palette the image will be ripe for vectorization.... you can simply manually trace it out (with frequent use of the colour picker)... or even try feeding this prepared image into the auto trace...(I havent tried this myself but i bet having the image neatly prepared like this will make all the difference.