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- Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
Learning to use Inkscape, an exciting open-source vector graphics program, broadens your software toolkit as a graphic designer. Using practical, real-world examples, you'll learn everything about the software and its capabilities so you'll be able to design anything from logos to websites.Inkscape Beginner's Guide is a practical step-by-step guide for learning this exciting vector graphics software. Not only will it take you through each menu item and toolbar, but you will also learn about creating complex shapes, text styling, filters, working with images, extensions, and the XML editoróall using real world examples.The book starts with an overview of vector graphics and how best to use them when designing for digital and print mediums. Then we install Inkscape and start learning all the ins and outs of the software. You'll build your first vector graphic while learning best practices for using layers, and build simple and complex objects with shapes and paths that will ultimately become exciting graphics to be used in your designs. Beyond designing sample logos and brochures while learning the software, you'll also learn how to use filters, install and use extensions, and the ins-and-outs of SVG and the XML Editor in Inkscape.
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Seitenzahl: 250
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012
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Table of Contents
Inkscape
Beginner's Guide
J. Ayen Green
Inkscape
Copyright © 2012 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: May 2012
Production Reference: 1170512
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd. Livery Place 35 Livery Street Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.
ISBN 978-1-84951-720-1
www.packtpub.com
Cover Image by Asher Wishkerman (<[email protected]> )
Credits
Author
Bethany Hiitola
Reviewers
Mark Bystry
Jose Olarte III
Richard Querin
Sylvia Slokker
Acquisition Editor
Sarah Cullington
Lead Technical Editor
Hithesh Uchil
Technical Editors
Ankita Shashi
Manali Mehta
Manasi Poonthottam
Copy Editors
Leonard D'Silva
Laxmi Subramanian
Project Coordinator
Joel Goveya
Proofreader
Chris Brown
Indexer
Monica Ajmera Mehta
Graphics
Manu Joseph
Valentina D'Souza
Production Coordinator
Melwyn D'Sa
Cover Work
Melwyn D'Sa
About the Author
Bethany Hiitola is a working writer. She has worked as a technical writer and multimedia developer for over 12 years. She spends the rest of her time as a wife, mother, and caretaker to pets. She has written more user manuals than she can count, essays, short stories, academic papers, press releases, and feature articles. More details about her writing and life are at her website: www.bethanyhiitola.com
Without you Matt, this book wouldn't have been possible. You are my everything.
About the Reviewers
Mark Bystry is a design engineer by trade. He is also an open source software enthusiast with a penchant for graphic art. Drawing and illustration, 3D modeling, desktop publishing, photography, and videography are just a few of his many interests. Those things also spill into his daily work duties. Mark has come to rely on Inkscape as well as several other leading open source applications to achieve a full range of graphic tasks.
Several years ago Mark teamed up with his online pal, Richard Querin, when they recognized a void within the Inkscape user community, specifically the lack of educational information dedicated to the use of Inkscape. Their vision was of a series of instructional videos geared towards beginners.
Since that time Richard and Mark have made over one hundred videos demonstrating various functions within the application. Though their video series has tapered off, mainly due to their insatiable need to explore all that the technological world has to offer, they still remain avid users of Inkscape and continue to guide novice users in the achievement of their goals.
Jose Olarte III is a graphic designer and photographer from Baguio City, Philippines. He specializes in: user interface design for web, mobile and desktop platforms; print design for magazines and other publications; logo and icon design. When he's not busy pushing pixels and stretching ems, he gets his social fix by tweeting away his thoughts: twitter.com/brownspank
I would like to thank my wife Vanessa for putting up with my extended hours and sharing my passion for work, without which I wouldn't have the strength and motivation to move forward with my creative endeavors.
Richard Querin is a practicing structural engineer with a passion for graphic design, photography, and other creative pursuits. He has contributed graphic design work to several different free and open source projects including websites, mobile and desktop applications, conference graphics, and print advertisements. He has also done numerous Inkscape video tutorials as a co-contributor to the screencasters.heathenx.org website.
I would like to thank my family for putting up with my creative antics and providing me the time and space to take on creative pursuits such as these. Thanks also go to my friend and Inkscape compatriot Mark Bystry for his help throughout the years and to Joel Goveya for his patience when it came to getting my reviews back. And finally, a special thanks to my wonderful daughter Emily for making fatherhood an absolute delight.
Sylvia Slokker is a graphics freelancer and IT professional. She started her career in web design and development in 2001, abandoning the career path of process engineer after almost 10 years.
Sylvia moved continents to chase a dream and currently works as a web developer in Australia. She has been creating vector designs since 1994, using both commercial as well as open source software. Nowadays, she uses Inkscape almost exclusively for all her vector work. Sylvia writes tutorials for the web under the nickname Syllie and runs: verysimpledesigns.com as a tutorial site for the novice Inkscape artist.
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Preface
Are you ready to jump into the world of graphic design and illustration? Or have you just begun to explore new tools that can broaden your skill set in these specialties? Inkscape Beginner's Guide is the perfect book to start this journey into the world of vector graphics. This book starts at the very basics of a complex, open source tool on the market today — Inkscape 0.48 (current version as of the publication of this book). Learn everything you need to know from setting up a document file to completing your first illustration.
The Inkscape graphics editor can be daunting when just learning the tool. There are so many features one may not know where to start. Inkscape Beginner's Guide can help to alleviate these fears; it takes a simple step-by-step approach to learning the software. It starts at the very beginning, unlocking the secret to the software's interface, explaining menus and the overall areas of the user interface, and then jumps into real projects that illustrate some simple graphic-building concepts.
Expect to learn everything from using paths, text styles, filters, and images — while building a brochure, logo, icons, illustration, and more — all in the context of real graphic design, illustration, or web projects. Using an informative but simple approach, learning Inkscape becomes a fun and interactive process.
Welcome to the world of Inkscape 0.48 and vector graphics! This book is an informational step-by-step beginner's book for someone just starting their journey in using Inkscape 0.48 in the creation of vector graphics. No previous experience using Inkscape 0.48 or other previous vector graphics programs are required. The book will be chalked full of real-world examples, detailed step-by-step instructions and associated screen captures to keep the information approachable yet easy to digest—and don't forget fun!
What this book covers
Chapter 1, Getting Started with Vector Graphics, starts before Inkscape, at the beginning of vector graphics. We begin by defining vector graphics and how they are used online and within print projects. Then we start digging into Inkcape learning about how the program began and how it fits in the world of vector graphics today.
Chapter 2, Installing and Opening Inkscape, discusses where to download Inkscape 0.48, the most recent version of the software and its unique features, as well as detailed descriptions about how to install the software. Included in this are screen captures that define the main areas of the program and menu items—all of which is very helpful when opening the software for the first time.
Chapter 3, How to Manage Files, is all about files and managing them. Inkscape can import a number of file formats and then edit them. Then, after completing a project Inkscape has the ability to save and export graphics in a number of formats. We will discuss all of these options as well as the native Inkscape SVG format and the benefits of using project folders.
Chapter 4, Creating your First Graphics, starts by defining paths and shapes, a basis for all projects going forward in Inkscape. Then it focuses on creating your very first Inkscape object—a star. Also discussed in this chapter are ellipses, complex shapes, freehand object, grids, and guidelines.
Chapter 5, How to Work with Layers, is all about layers in Inkscape. You will learn the basics like how to create new layers, delete, arrange, and blend layers, as well as hiding and duplicating layers, all the while working on a sample blog header project.
Chapter 6, Building Objects, helps you learn about objects and how Inkscape interprets them, how to change object features, change fill and stroke, grouping objects, combining objects, and how to best use the masking and clipping features.
Chapter 7, Using Paths focuses, on using paths. Again we start with the basics: defining paths, how to work with them in Inkscape, transforming, combining, and placing paths. The bulk of this chapter will focus on an illustration project that will assist you in learning all you need to know about paths.
Chapter 8, How to Style Text, teaches how you can manipulate and style text for any design. It is a practical chapter that covers using paths and text to create visual appeal, text and frames, the basics like spellcheck and find/replace, text effects, and a simple project to show how to create a text reflection.
Chapter 9, Using Filters, focuses on using filters with text and images to give a further dimension to your vector graphics. Projects will focus on using images and text—including a detailed example with step-by-step instructions on using filters with text.
Chapter 10, Extensions in Inkscape, is as expected, about extensions or templates and plugins that can assist in the design process for vector graphics. You will learn how to install templates, extensions, and about the availability of certain extension or scripts that might be useful.
Chapter 11, Working with Images, is all about importing photographs or images into Inkscape and manipulating them. Specifically, you will be working on a few sample projects that deal with photographs and filters.
Chapter 12, Using the XML Editor, teaches you about the XML editor that is included within Inkscape. It covers the basic XML structure tree, as well as how you can manipulate this code to change objects in your projects.
Appendix A, Where to Find More Information, provides web links to people and places that can help you learn even more about Inkscape.
Appendix B, Keyboard Shortcuts, mentions the basic keyboard shortcuts for Inkscape 0.48.
Appendix C, Glossary of Terms, is a glossary of Inkscape and basic design terms used throughout the book.
What you need for this book
You'll need the latest version of Inkscape 0.48 and Internet access (to download some example clip art and projects).
If you are using a Mac, then you may also need the X11 app on your system to run Inkscape (this typically comes pre-installed on Leopard OSX).
Who this book is for
This book is intended for novice graphic and web designers who want to expand their graphic software expertise. General familiarity with a graphics program is recommended, but not required.
Conventions
In this book, you will find several headings appearing frequently.
To give clear instructions of how to complete a procedure or task, we use:
Time for action — heading
Instructions often need some extra explanation so that they make sense, so they are followed with:
What just happened?
This heading explains the working of tasks or instructions that you have just completed.
You will also find some other learning aids in the book, including:
Pop quiz — heading
These are short multiple-choice questions intended to help you test your own understanding.
Have a go hero — heading
This sets practical challenges and gives you ideas for experimenting with what you have learned.
You will also find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text are shown as follows: "Find the Inkscape icon in the Application or Programs folder"
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "Open Inkscape, and from the main menu, select File | New | CD_cover_300dpi.".
Note
Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.
Tip
Tips and tricks appear like this.
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Downloading the color images of this book
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Errata
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Questions
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Chapter 1. Getting Started with Vector Graphics
Inkscape is an open source, free program that creates vector-based graphics that can be used in web and print design, in interface and logo creation, and in material cutting. Its capabilities are similar to those of commercial products such as Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia Freehand, and CorelDraw and can be used for any number of practical purposes—creating vector graphics for use in illustrations, business letterheads, computer and electronic wallpapers, and designing web pages and the elements within them.
This is a beginner's guide to using Inkscape. This means you will learn all the ins and outs of using this software—including all the details about the interface, menus, buttons, as well as how to create graphics. We'll start with the very basic parts of graphics and build up as we continue through the book to more complex graphics projects pointing out how you would use these items in everyday projects.
However, before learning the details on how to use Inkscape, let's take a step back and define vector graphics, how a computer displays them, how vector graphics work together, and why we want to use them in design.
Specifically, this chapter will teach you the following:
Let's get started!
What are vector graphics?
A vector graphic is made up of points, lines, curves, and shapes or polygons, which are all based on mathematical equations. Inkscape uses these objects and can convert them into paths. A path is a line with a start and end, which are also calculated with a mathematical equation. These paths are not limited to being straight—they can be of any shape, size, and even encompass any number of curves. When you combine them, they create drawings, diagrams, and can even help create certain fonts.
How does this all relate to vector-based graphics? Vector-based graphics aren't made up of pixels. Since they are resolution-independent, you can make them larger (by scaling) and the image quality will stay the same, lines and edges stay clean, and the same images can be used on items as small as letterheads or business cards, blown up to be billboards, or used in high-definition animation sequences. This flexibility, often accompanied by smaller file sizes, makes vector graphics ideal—especially in the world of Internet, computer displays of varying resolution, and hosting services for web pages. Inkscape can help in the navigation of those waters of vector graphics and is a tool that can be invaluable when designing for the digital world as well as print.
These characteristics make vector graphics very different from JPEGs, GIFs, or BMP images—all of which are considered raster or bitmap images, made up of tiny squares called pixels or bits. If you magnify these images, you will see that they are made up of a grid (or bitmap), and if magnified further, they will become blurry and grainy as each pixel with bitmap square's zoom level grows larger.
Programs that use vector graphics
As stated earlier in the chapter, many programs and applications are similar to Inkscape and can open vector graphics. Some can only open these files for viewing purposes and others can edit them.
Other applications typically used for page layout, but which can open and manipulate vector graphics include Scribus, Quark Xpress, and Adobe InDesign
