Inkscape

Eraser Tool erases entire picture

Asked by Michael Richards

I am trying to erase a portion of a drawing, with the eraser tool set on 1 (hairline size). When I use the tool, the entire picture vanishes, leaving me with a white screen, as if the entire thing was erased. Am I doing something wrong?

The image I had opened and was trying to erase a bit of is a line drawing which I had scanned into the computer.

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Mc (mc...) said : 		#1

What sort of image did you try to open ? a raster image ?

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Michael Richards (wanyman) said : 		#2

Nope...though not sure what a raster image is. It is a jpeg file, a line drawing, which I opened and was trying to erase a small part of. I'm wondering if there is a setting on the eraser tool or something that I missed.

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Mc (mc...) said : 		#3

A jpeg file is a raster file ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_file_formats#Raster_formats ).

Inkscape is a vector graphic editor. It deals with curves, not pixels. To it, your "image" is composed of one "chunk of binary data" and no other curve or vector data it can deal with, so all the eraser can do is "remove that chunk of filthy binary non-vector data" when you ask it to remove something there.

You can either try to vectorize the file you have ( http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/Trace.html ), or try a raster graphic editor such as the GIMP ( http://www.gimp.org/ ) or Krita ( https://krita.org/ )

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