NEW USER - overwhelmed by options - How do I...

[Colt]

I drew a simple line drawing with a marker on a transparency sheet.
Then I scanned it to create a digital image of the drawing on my computer.
Now I would like to do 2 things with the image:

1) Make the image solid black on a white background... Removing shade and color variance while retaining image sharpness
2) Make the program show all the little vector points so I can smooth out the line imperfections 1 by 1.

I'll include the drawing in case it helps.

   

[Ofnuts]

Taking it in the wrong order IMHO:

I would 1) get a path with whatever I have and 2) use the path to get a filled image.

To get the path, two ways:

Looks automatic but will be painful in the end

1. Select the background with fuzzy select
   
2. Select>To path
   
3. Edit the path to smooth the lines (pain point)
   

Looks hard but easier in the end

1. Create the path from scratch, using the initial drawing as a template (much cleaner path with fewer anchors)(*)
   

Note that the way selection works on a path, if an outline path intersects with itself the intersection is not selected. So in this drawing you have to make 4 paths, and create a complete selection by adding each to the selection. Another way is to avoid lines crossing each other, but to keep everything aligned to have to make lines intersect first.

So here is how it looks after 10 minutes:

   

The full XCF is attached

(*) No as hard as its looks, a rather efficient technique is to draw a polygonal path, putting anchors where the curvature changes ("inflexion points), then shift click between two such points to add an anchor and drag it to the drawing border.

[Espermaschine]

Trace bitmap in Inkscape. One mouseclick.

[Colt]

(12-07-2019, 10:34 PM)Ofnuts Wrote: Taking it in the wrong order IMHO:

I would 1) get a path with whatever I have and 2) use the path to get a filled image.

To get the path, two ways:

Looks automatic but will be painful in the end

1. Select the background with fuzzy select
   
2. Select>To path
   
3. Edit the path to smooth the lines (pain point)
   

Looks hard but easier in the end

1. Create the path from scratch, using the initial drawing as a template (much cleaner path with fewer anchors)(*)
   

Note that the way selection works on a path, if an outline path intersects with itself the intersection is not selected. So in this drawing you have to make 4 paths, and create a complete selection by adding each to the selection. Another way is to avoid lines crossing each other, but to keep everything aligned to have to make lines intersect first.

So here is how it looks after 10 minutes:



The full XCF is attached

(*) No as hard as its looks, a rather efficient technique is to draw a polygonal path, putting anchors where the curvature changes ("inflexion points), then shift click between two such points to add an anchor and drag it to the drawing border.

Thank you for taking the time to respond and trace my image... but I'm still lost on how to do it. It looks like GIMP isn't the right program for me.

Just as a tip for helping others in the future, mentioning what drop-down menus to go to would be very helpful for new users that don't know all the options. If you could even link a video tutorial, that would be ideal. (not for me now, just for others in the future)

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(12-08-2019, 06:25 AM)Espermaschine Wrote: Trace bitmap in Inkscape. One mouseclick.

Thank you for your reply. That's very easy.
Just press Alt+Shift+B, make sure the Live Preview option at the bottom is checked, and adjust the Threshold of the Brightness Cutoff until the preview looks good, then click OK. That's more on my level of skill with understanding imaging software. Then I can edit my paths by nodes by zooming in and pressing F2. That's the stuff!
I found a video that helped a little with the first part. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNEnQW_rOGw
And this video helped a lot with the second part https://youtu.be/dVjJfx2oc5w