Edge Detection with Inkscape

| software | foss | design |

Inkscape is a great open source drawing tool that can be thought of as an opens source alternative to Adobe Illustrator. It is perfect for making drawings, models, flyers, and pretty much any other type of graphic design. A pretty neat feature is the edge detection algorithm that it uses in order to draw lines around an image which allows you to modify different parts of the image without having to manually trace it. I wanted to color in a map of the United States to see all of the states that I have been in. This is a pretty simple task, but if I had to trace each individual state it would have been a nightmare. This short tutorial will show you how to take advantage of this powerful feature. Before we get started make sure you have Inkscape installed. If you are using a mac like me, be sure to have XQuartz installed before you try to install Inkscape.

  1. Fire up Inkscape and open the image that you want to edit. If you want to color in the map of US with me, you can use this picture.
  2. Make sure that the image is selected and go to Path –> Trace Bitmap 
  3. Your image is now traced and you can color in whatever parts you like without having to worry about the colors bleeding over.
This handy and easy to use function of Inkscape makes it easy to work with images and color them in without having to worry about tracing them manually.

Thank you for reading! Share your thoughts with me on bluesky, mastodon, or via email.

Check out some more stuff to read down below.

Most popular posts this month

Recent Favorite Blog Posts

This is a collection of the last 8 posts that I bookmarked.

Articles from blogs I follow around the net

It’s Storytime with Wil Wheaton episode 5 – can i offer you a nice egg in this trying time by iori kusano

It is Wednesday, my dudes, and that means we have a brand new podcast for you. This week, it’s can i offer you a nice egg in this trying time, […]

via WIL WHEATON dot NET April 23, 2025

Portuguese is the second most popular language (by far!) on Buttondown

The partnership between this Manual do Usuário and Buttondown, a newsletter service, has been renewed for the second time. Buttondown will continue to sponsor the (Portuguese-only) directory of Brazilian newsletters and the (also in pt_BR) series of inter…

via Manual do Usuário April 23, 2025

Brian Regan Helped Me Understand My Aversion to Job Titles

I like the job title “Design Engineer”. When required to label myself, I feel partial to that term (I should, I’ve written about it enough). Lately I’ve felt like the term is becoming more mainstream which, don’t get me wrong, is a good thing. I appreciate…

via Jim Nielsen’s Blog April 23, 2025

Generated by openring