how to make an image into a sillouhuette.

Hi Ann,

There is a good Dutch tutorial for your question. I translated it into English with Google translate.

Go to this page to view the tutorial:
http://translate.google.nl/translate?prev=hp&hl=nl&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.m-scrapsite.nl%2FSilhouette-plaatje2.htm&sl=nl&tl=en

Hope this helped
Sander Wiering

Had trouble understanding the instructions....Thank you anyway.

Ann:
It depends on the source image.
If the image is already on a white background, then it's easy. Use the bucket fill tool to create a shape from the background and use CTRL+SHIFT+K to uncombine the shape, then erase the background and the resulting shape will be the sillohuette.
I use that technique to create drop shadows for bitmap images directly in inkscape.
Take a look: http://www.vimeo.com/1347394

If the image is an illustration like the one in the Sander's tutorial, then you can use the bucket fill to create the shapes one by one (select the yellow color swatch, fill the the yellow parts using the bucket fill tool -shift+click to add to the previous fill- and repeat the process with the other colors).
You can still use the trace bitmap tool, but it will take some practice to get a good result if the image has more than one color.

If the image is more complex (a photo, for instance), then you have to trace it manually, using the bezier tool. It's not that hard and once you get used to the process it's quite fast.