4 ms·

Only thing I find annoying in Inkscape is doing simple crops of images

by mavhc 5y ago

chris_wot 5y ago
Why so?
- TchoBeer 5y ago
  Maybe I'm wrong, I'm a very causal user, but I think the only way to do it is to create a shape that covers the part you want to keep, and then do object -> set -> clip or something like that; it's not exceedingly awful, but it's not as smooth as clicking "crop" and dragging borders.
  - amelius 5y ago
    But the upside is that you can crop to any shape, not just rectangles. Also, there are not 2 workflows, one for rectangles and one for arbitrary shapes, which is a good thing.
    - megameter 5y ago
      You could "just" crop by subtracting shapes manually every time, too. Rectangle crops are extremely common so it makes sense to have a tool for that even if it just generates the underlying concept(as with shape-to-path). If I were approaching the problem fresh, though, I would look into the presentation of the modal functions as the root of the issue. The source of a lot of complexity in image editing software is confusion over layers, masks, groups, and selections - they have some conceptual overlap and can be applied modally(e.g. shape as rendering element OR mask OR selection). If the UI buries the difference it just adds to the confusion.
    - gugagore 5y ago
      > Also, there are not 2 workflows, one for rectangles and one for arbitrary shapes, which is a good thing. I think having a unified workflow is a good thing, and that that can exist along side important special cases. A tool like inkscape gets a ton of "casual" once-in-a-while use and some amount of frequent power-user use. It's tricky to facilitate both kinds of use, but I think that should be a goal. What you wrote is not ridiculous like the following statement, but consider "Yeah, you have to draw by using your text editor on an SVG file. There are not two workflows, one for drawings and one for text, which is a good thing."
  - montroser 5y ago
    Yeah, I want this to be easier all the time, and I haven't found a better way that what you described.
vanattab 5y ago
Cropping of vector graphics is more complex by nature then cropping raster graphics
- SilverRed 5y ago
  Inkscape already has the math for it as part of the boolean tools. This sounds like a UI problem
themodelplumber 5y ago
Well, I guess for every guy using MS Paint and GIMP for maritime 3D cutaway illustrations, there's another person using Inkscape for cropping. No judgement. http://www.hisutton.com/How%20to%20draw%20sub%20cutaways%20in%20MS%20Paint.html http://www.hisutton.com/How%20to%20draw%20sub%20cutaways%20i...
- _carbyau_ 5y ago
  That link. Wow. Kudos to the guy for perfecting his art. I love the end result and I love those kind of engineering cutaways in general. If coming new to the game, I feel that using Blender to make it in 3D would give you reusable parts that could be resized, coloured and posed from any angle. Allowing the next "similar engineering object" to be made much faster. But for someone who has already so clearly mastered their process I suspect that the time taken to master Blender and the frustations involved would detract too much from the joy of their work.
  - themodelplumber 5y ago
    I've done both Blender and GIMP-only methods and TBH the GIMP method is nice in that you are stuck with one camera shot decided in advance. Eventually in full 3D I start fiddling with camera angles think about all the animation possibilities and it's downhill from there, time-wise. :-) Though I have also found that it's sometimes nice to block things out with Blender so that the camera perspective is easy to work out quickly and the main shape lines are all blocked in...
- montroser 5y ago
  It's not that you use Inkscape _for_ cropping, but sometimes you're laying out a graphic that includes photo content here and there... But anyway, that's quite the trip with the submarine cutaways!
asddubs 5y ago
just draw a square, select it and hit "resize viewport to selection"?
- prokoudine 5y ago
  Just draw a rectangle (or any path) above the image, select both, right-click, and apply clipping path :)
  - asddubs 5y ago
    right, i guess cropping is kind of an ambiguous description for an operation
esarbe 5y ago
I think there's a new filter for that[0]. [0] https://media.inkscape.org/media/doc/release_notes/1.1/Inkscape_1.1.html#Filters https://media.inkscape.org/media/doc/release_notes/1.1/Inksc...
- mavhc 5y ago
  Excellent, thanks

Only thing I find annoying in Inkscape is doing simple crops of images

by mavhc 5y ago

Only thing I find annoying in Inkscape is doing simple crops of images

chris_wot 5y ago

Why so?

TchoBeer 5y ago
Maybe I'm wrong, I'm a very causal user, but I think the only way to do it is to create a shape that covers the part you want to keep, and then do object -> set -> clip or something like that; it's not exceedingly awful, but it's not as smooth as clicking "crop" and dragging borders.
- amelius 5y ago
  But the upside is that you can crop to any shape, not just rectangles. Also, there are not 2 workflows, one for rectangles and one for arbitrary shapes, which is a good thing.
  - megameter 5y ago
    You could "just" crop by subtracting shapes manually every time, too. Rectangle crops are extremely common so it makes sense to have a tool for that even if it just generates the underlying concept(as with shape-to-path). If I were approaching the problem fresh, though, I would look into the presentation of the modal functions as the root of the issue. The source of a lot of complexity in image editing software is confusion over layers, masks, groups, and selections - they have some conceptual overlap and can be applied modally(e.g. shape as rendering element OR mask OR selection). If the UI buries the difference it just adds to the confusion.
  - gugagore 5y ago
    > Also, there are not 2 workflows, one for rectangles and one for arbitrary shapes, which is a good thing. I think having a unified workflow is a good thing, and that that can exist along side important special cases. A tool like inkscape gets a ton of "casual" once-in-a-while use and some amount of frequent power-user use. It's tricky to facilitate both kinds of use, but I think that should be a goal. What you wrote is not ridiculous like the following statement, but consider "Yeah, you have to draw by using your text editor on an SVG file. There are not two workflows, one for drawings and one for text, which is a good thing."
- montroser 5y ago
  Yeah, I want this to be easier all the time, and I haven't found a better way that what you described.

vanattab 5y ago

Cropping of vector graphics is more complex by nature then cropping raster graphics

SilverRed 5y ago
Inkscape already has the math for it as part of the boolean tools. This sounds like a UI problem

themodelplumber 5y ago

Well, I guess for every guy using MS Paint and GIMP for maritime 3D cutaway illustrations, there's another person using Inkscape for cropping. No judgement. http://www.hisutton.com/How%20to%20draw%20sub%20cutaways%20in%20MS%20Paint.html http://www.hisutton.com/How%20to%20draw%20sub%20cutaways%20i...

_carbyau_ 5y ago
That link. Wow. Kudos to the guy for perfecting his art. I love the end result and I love those kind of engineering cutaways in general. If coming new to the game, I feel that using Blender to make it in 3D would give you reusable parts that could be resized, coloured and posed from any angle. Allowing the next "similar engineering object" to be made much faster. But for someone who has already so clearly mastered their process I suspect that the time taken to master Blender and the frustations involved would detract too much from the joy of their work.
- themodelplumber 5y ago
  I've done both Blender and GIMP-only methods and TBH the GIMP method is nice in that you are stuck with one camera shot decided in advance. Eventually in full 3D I start fiddling with camera angles think about all the animation possibilities and it's downhill from there, time-wise. :-) Though I have also found that it's sometimes nice to block things out with Blender so that the camera perspective is easy to work out quickly and the main shape lines are all blocked in...
montroser 5y ago
It's not that you use Inkscape _for_ cropping, but sometimes you're laying out a graphic that includes photo content here and there... But anyway, that's quite the trip with the submarine cutaways!

asddubs 5y ago

just draw a square, select it and hit "resize viewport to selection"?

prokoudine 5y ago
Just draw a rectangle (or any path) above the image, select both, right-click, and apply clipping path :)
- asddubs 5y ago
  right, i guess cropping is kind of an ambiguous description for an operation

esarbe 5y ago

I think there's a new filter for that[0]. [0] https://media.inkscape.org/media/doc/release_notes/1.1/Inkscape_1.1.html#Filters https://media.inkscape.org/media/doc/release_notes/1.1/Inksc...

mavhc 5y ago
Excellent, thanks