Inkscape: Get an outline of an object

Question

I have an object, it is a t-shirt which is black. I want to get this t-shirt but brown. I can't just fill it because it is a photo, not homogenous color. It is the pure shape of it, not square -> So I tried to make a brown square, and then clip->set when I had both selected. I get only white space, not brown t-shirt.

In my opinion, the solution is to get only an outline of this t-shirt and then to fill it with brown color. But I don't know how to get an outline of it.

Will you give me an advice, how to do that? I'm very new in Inkscape. Thank you!

Answer 1

If it is already a photo, you don't need to treat it in a vector program. I suggest using GIMP instead, select your object, and use the colors->transparency->color to alpha filter, selecting black. This will make all black in the image transparent - not only that, but all colors proportionally transparent according to their level of black.

The image with transparency is what you should print over brown to get your image back. To see it on the screen, add a new layer, move it underneath the drawing, and fill it with brown.

If the image gets too transparent, protect the inner parts of it from the color-to-alpha filer, by selecting it with the lasso tool andinverting the selection before using the filter.

Answer 2

You can convert raster images to vector images by using Inkscape's Trace bitmap function. There's a great tutorial on this in the official documentation.