[quote] Hello ,

I am totally new here & new at this sort of thing. Please be kind
Can someone walk me through Photo vectoring. Can this be done in Inkscape ?
I need to setup photos for engraving & Lithophanes. Or do i need to start the process in another program.

Thanks, sheken....

Hi Sheken,

You're in the right place. Inkscape has a trace bitmap function (Shift+alt+B) on under the Path menu. This is probably what you need. It has lots of options to choose between tracing the outline of brightness levels or colours and can also make a good job of tracing line work. If you set it to trace at 12 colours say, on a simple colour photo it will output 12 filled paths each with an plain colour fill which you can then edit, simplyfy, re-colour and so on.

(I assume you are able to import your bitmap image into Inkscape as it is just 'Import' on the file menu)!

See an example I made at this post

There is also an on-line vectorising service that I just tried at http://vectormagic.com they offer a few free conversions and the results are pretty good if only because their set-up and preview gizmo is excellent.

I'm intrigued as to what you are doing. I had a quick Google on Lithophanes. Wow! Pretty obscure

Good luck

Dave

I'm using 4.6 Inkscape and I can't remember if it was in 4.5, sorry short memory.

Dave,

Thanks for your reply. I have not had any real good finishes on Lithophanes yet. A few I have seen are just brilliant.
The light behind is the secret + a good finish. I just found Vector Magic about an hour ago & started doing some trials with it.
See how I go.

Cheers, sheken....