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analog slides

Asked by kulez

I have old sides which I have pictured from a text book with an analog camera. Pictures are all illustrations. I have scanned these slides with a scanner in order to digitilize them. The pictures are now greyish and not very well. I wish to vectorize them and get a copy of the path without the background. How can I do this?

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pbhj (pbhj) said : 		#1

Your best bet IMO is to use a photo editing application like The GIMP. It has a tool (as most do) to set the white, grey and black points, Colours > Levels. You open the levels dialog and click on the grey background, this is then set to white and the contrast of the image spread across the whole range. If your blacks look grey you can do the same thing for the blackpoint clicking on the bit that is most black in your image. You could also try the different options under Colours > Auto and possibly those under Filters > Enhance as these can help to improve the image quality.

Once you have made good your source images then import them into Inkscape and use Path > Trace Bitmap. Again, have a play with the different options so as to get the best trace with your particular sources.

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kulez (rkulez) said : 		#2

Thanks for quick reply. GIMP worked very well. I have solved the background greyness and imported to Inkscape. I have got the paths. Now what I wish to do is to get a new line joining the paths. In other words I want to draw the figure again using the paths. Can you explain me the steps?

________________________________
From: pbhj <email address hidden>
To: <email address hidden>
Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2009 1:16:29 PM
Subject: Re: [Question #58372]: analog slides

Your question #58372 on Inkscape changed:
https://answers.launchpad.net/inkscape/+question/58372

    Status: Open => Answered

pbhj proposed the following answer:
Your best bet IMO is to use a photo editing application like The GIMP.
It has a tool (as most do) to set the white, grey and black points,
Colours > Levels. You open the levels dialog and click on the grey
background, this is then set to white and the contrast of the image
spread across the whole range. If your blacks look grey you can do the
same thing for the blackpoint clicking on the bit that is most black in
your image. You could also try the different options under Colours >
Auto and possibly those under Filters > Enhance as these can help to
improve the image quality.

Once you have made good your source images then import them into
Inkscape and use Path > Trace Bitmap. Again, have a play with the
different options so as to get the best trace with your particular
sources.

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Revision history for this message
Best RIco (rico-rootscore-deactivatedaccount) said : 		#3

you can do it automatically by selecting your image and going to Path Menu>Trace bitmap, try different options, and click update, when you are satisfied with the result, click OK. The trace will appear over your picture.

If you want to do it all yourself by hand, i would recommend the video tutorials episodes 069 and 075 from http://screencasters.heathenx.org/

Revision history for this message
kulez (rkulez) said : 		#4

Thanks a lot. Examples are very informative.