Inkscape 1.1
inkscape.org
inkscape.org
When I took a look at the text saved in the file, I was pretty shocked to discover it saved the entire path of the file in the file.
In other words, it saves a directory structure that could contain your username, the name of the project you're working on, what company you're working for, etc.
Felt like a pretty shocking invasion of privacy to me. When I throw up an SVG on the web, I don't want it to contain potentially personally identifiable information.
Does that do what you want?
You can clear yours:
File -> Document Properties -> Metadata (clear all fields) -> Save as default
===
At any rate, for the web use:
File -> Save As -> Optimized SVG
Why is it even a "feature" in the first place? It's not the kind of thing I'd expect to even have to worry about whether it defaulted to on or off.
I don't see how this is a common feature at all.
Other than that, was it part of the original/downloaded file?
Saving as "Plain SVG" does not include this (or any other sodipodi namespace elements, by design). Not great that the default save format includes this, but FWIW best practice is to save as "Plain SVG" for interoperability.
inkscape:export-filename="/home/symbiote/Documents/drawing.png"
[1] is a bug report, but only part of the problem seems to have been resolved.
(Tested in this new release.)
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/stri...
Inkscape shouldn't be including this, but just an fyi since you say you were shocked by this: many apps include such metadata in their default save formats.
The main distinction with Inkscape is that most apps have a proprietary save format which you are less likely to publish publicly. Inkscape's use of an open standard for their default metadata-rich save format means that metadata often gets published.
Still, I do think the trove of metadata many apps leave in their files is probably unnecessary and should definitely be addressed (in all apps, including Inkscape).
How is any of this a shocker?
It's always there. It does not change UI much between releases. I dont have to download a cracked version of some commercial tool because I'm to stingy to buy expensive software for a simple task at hand.
Inkscape (and Gimp) have helped me a lot in this regard.
Gimp is much better than PS for my use case. And not having to pay some sick subscription is a big reason to stay away from them.
It doesn't need the same workflows as Photoshop, but it definitely needs to improve them
I will add that copying Photoshop would be an easy all-around win because Photoshop has engineered their UX. I'd say it would be pretty hard to come up with better alternates than what Photoshop has probably.
There are cheaper alternatives to Photoshop that get their UX much better than Gimp. To name two: Gravit (£3/m) or Krita (FOSS), but they're not exactly photo manipulation, though.
Gimp is FreeSoftware (FLOSS), this puts the word "need" in a context where it does not really work like that.
> because Photoshop [in contrast to Gimp] has engineered their UX
This is straight up condescending to the Gimp devs. Sure PS has put more money in UX design, but your saying Gimp dev did not (or cannot) do any of that.
Please be kind when you get something for free.
I... Partially agree with you that every UX is "engineered" but that depends on how far we're willing to stretch that definition in the design domain.
I'd hardly call any workflow I design an engineered one (even if I like this field), when compared to something produced by an UX designer (or a team of them) who specialises in the field. Maybe someone put a lot of thought into the gimp UX, but it seems like a wasted effort (or maybe it was just inexperience). I don't know how to phrase this without it sounding insensitive, though. I'm not criticising the people, just this instance of their work, so I hope it inspires them to improve. I'd like to see Gimp become as successful as krita or inkscape (which had UX issues for years, too)
I realise gimp is free, but there also seems to be a general attitude amongst gimp contributors that they think the UX is fine, while most people (in my circles, at least) disagree with that view
Gratitude and praise it all I have for them. I only criticize in actual places where change is made (issues discussions, etc), and even then I try to be VERY polite.
No, it isn't. There is literally years worth of user feedback and it still hasn't been addressed. It's a common complaint and to say they haven't "engineered" their UX is putting it lightly.
> Please be kind when you get something for free.
Something being free doesn't mean it can't be criticized. Nothing said was unkind.
Actually, no. As the person doing tech support for GIMP, I can tell you with 100% assurance that people do complain about GIMP not cloning Photoshop's UI. Quite a lot, in fact.
> It doesn't need the same workflows as Photoshop, but it definitely needs to improve them
Agreed.
> I will add that copying Photoshop would be an easy all-around win
It wouldn't be easy. Nor would it be a win. You would be stuck in the cycle of always following whatever changes Photoshop developers make. And dealing with the same criticism Photoshop devs get. Why would you want that?
And why would you, in your spare time, continuously copy someone else's work? There's no money in this. And it's not fun for sure. So why? Low self-esteem?
> cheaper alternatives to Photoshop... Gravit ... not exactly photo manipulation
Mhm, how about... Not photo manipulation at all and not alternative to Photoshop at all? :)
My general workflow is to use Krita and Inkscape (I used Gravit for a while because Inkscape was having some bugs I couldn't cope with), and maybe do some minor final colour correction/grading in Gimp on the final output. I could do all of this without leaving Photoshop. I'm not complaining though, since I much prefer Krita's brush engine than Photoshop, and I've gotten used to Inkscape's quirks. And they're both free!
It's not a matter of self esteem or confidence. If someone does it better, do it even better, or settled for living in their shadow.
The way to doing better is learning from the ones that are good at it already, right?
So why not learn from Adobe, which probably has the largest team of the smartest UX engineers working for them. They're not dominating such a complex market with smoke and mirrors.
And maybe Gimp can learne from Photoshop's mistakes too.
Blender is an excellent example of the process I described above. Their UI/UX was a joke for years, but they tried switching things upe and learned from the competitors. I'd say right now they're better than some (if not all) with of most features in terms of UX, especially for newcomers to the industry. Blender went form the steepest learning curve to one that's easy to get into, and from one of the worst UX/UI designs to one of the most polished in the industry.
It's not about low self esteem at all, it's about bettering yourself (or your project). If anything, that's how you build confidence, in my opinion.
The conversion was not perfect. I am using FPDF with an EPS add-on, and after study of the PHP source, I was able to open the EPS with a text editor and reformat it so that it would successfully import.
Unfortunately, it loaded upside down, so I was forced to flip and save again in inkscape, then repeat the formatting. This odd behavior is also present in the (downstream) TCPDF library, which appears to have close to the same code.
Complain as I may, I didn't have to buy Adobe Illustrator.
It’s still too expensive for me at full price but I nabbed a Mac App Store license when it was on sale a few weeks ago.
I haven’t tried Inkscape recently, but last time I did it failed horribly at the most basic tasks of path editing and SVG prep.
Adobe likes to advertise it as $20.99/month, but that's only with a 12 month commitment, and you can't cancel early without paying. Renting Illustrator for a single month will really cost you $31.41.
Even at full price ($50), Affinity Designer costs less than two months of Illustrator.
Not a professional artist and don't use it often, but it's enough of a value that hobbyists like me can actually use it. Any of Adobe's products, not so much.
I don't mind paying for a new license for each new box I want to use it on - because it still works on my xp machine, and each other one - with or without internet connectivity - no license check needed- it just works.
Also, the Apple Photos integration for Affinity Photo is pretty damned handy :)
Bunch of great little products.
i find affinity to be lacking but very very good value for money. so no complaints
Actually it doesn't, Affinity open the embbded pdf in Ai file, some metadata like textframe/alignment does not exist in pdf.
1) Path and style integrity
2) Artboard dimensional integrity
3) Export file quality
In my testing, I was able to open a file I had edited and saved in Illustrator, export it as an SVG, it was an utterly pixel-perfect drop-in replacement for a previously exported SVG. I was also able to confirm that all of the SVG files I care about can be opened directly, edited and exported with no errors. That's enough for me to confidently say goodbye to Illustrator forever. It's robust enough that I know I can deal with the occasional import glitch if it ever does happen.
There has to be a better way than dealing with EPS files in 2021 though. It's a pretty archaic format, and poorly and incompletely supported by most programs. Can you use PDF for the embedded image instead? That's what I do when generating PDFs with PDFLatex and friends.
Wow!
Is it a bit like AutoCAD?
It's not. Though you can tell macOS to launch it in low resolution mode and that does help a lot.
For a while Unity didn’t support it and it was definitely one of ‘those things’ about using it I hated until they perfected it. (There was a limited beta window for it as I believe an ‘experimental’ option?)
Design software should definitely ideally match the DPI it’s supposed to be presented in. That’s almost a make or break for myself.
If I remember correctly, which I probably don't, it's partly also because the macOS display process involves painting something like 2-4x as many pixels as the screen actually has and then downscaling the result because that looks prettier than just drawing the exact pixels directly. But I'm probably misremembering that part.
I think it’s more either “lazy” or “pragmatic” (depending on your view) programming to avoid various issues you can get with non integer scaling.
I never knew about this trick. Just tried it and it bumped Inkscape's performance on my 2015 MBP from "not quite usable" to "usable enough" for my occasional design needs. Thanks!
You could even send out free evaluation copies and see if it sticks in your favorite impressive industry. :-)
If you have a specific need that you can't figure out how to achieve in Inkscape, then asking how to do that specific thing would be much more productive.
(With a massive exception for no color management in Wayland)
As an iOS dev for a living and a mainly MacOS user I have unfortunately found the UI/UX experience of Inkscape and GIMP (especially) to be kinda rough to use, I feel like maybe it’s better on Linux?
Apparently it still doesn't do CMYK, never mind deal with spot inks: https://inkscape.org/learn/faq/#how-create-graphics-cmyk-col... - that was a deal-killer the last time I looked at it, probably something like a decade ago, and it's still a deal-killer for me now.
I dunno if that's me saying "it's not any good" or not but it sure isn't me saying I'm willing to spend a few days fucking around with something that can't do something my work requires on a regular basis.
Someone's gotta do the packaging for almost everything you buy at stores.
Go to a convention: someone designed all the signage for the con, the badges, as well as the individual booths and any amount of what they may be selling. Plus all the fliers and stickers whatnot people want to hand out.
Gotten anything shipped lately? Did it come in a box with more than one color on it? Those are probably a couple of spot inks, rather than CMYK. That's a thing where instead of mixing a color from little dots of the primaries, you load up a tank in the printer with ink mixed to a very specific color.
Got a collection of Pokemon cards? Pull out those extra-rare ones with the foil and gloss and stuff. The precise process for actually putting those on the card varies and may not involve anything resembling "ink" at all but a lot of those are specified as spot inks too.
I could probably come up with more examples but there is a cat milling about my ankles who is very vocal about her need for some playtime. :)
Automated RGB-to-CMYK translation has gotten better over the years but if you are a pro, you will probably have had enough nasty surprises when that fails that you know how to do it yourself, maybe you're even like me and work in CMYK to begin with as a rule so that you never have to fuck around with finessing that translation.
Illustrator and Inkscape have very different paradigms. Inkscape draws from the Corel Draw camp, and the barrier to use for anyone skilled in one or the other goes way back.
I have moderate skill using Illustrator and am adept at Inkscape, and that goes right back to Corel being totally capable enough and cheap, and because I basically had licenses bought for me, Corel has always been free.
As Inkscape really began to be robust, I found it simple to step off the Corel train, rarely missing a beat.
If its color management was good and it imports from/exports to pdf well, I wouldn't need Illustrator anymore. I honestly hate illustrator, would be glad to switch, but I'm more likely to move to Affinity than to Inkscape.
I have no real arts skills and this was on Windows, but I walked away with an inpression that it's not a tool I would want to use proffeshionally. That was about 2 years ago
You'd hope Adobe was better than this too.
But is it good? Hell yeah. Learn the keys and the quirks its like the vi of vector graphics - your fingers can dance on the keyboard and work at twice the pace you get from mouse driven point and click type workflow. You will note nearly all the "complainers" are people saying "I tried it for 5 minutes and gave up because of X" - if that's you then, yeah. But you probably wouldnt like vi either.
Don’t take it personally, I probably read the same question at slashdot in ‘97.
Inkscape is probably not the best nor most convenient vector drawing tool, but it's probably the most affordable and usable to the majority of the planet's population, so it has my fondness and respect.
I'd be great if they supported direct use of CMYK in addition to the default screen-space RGB mode.
And yes, I understand Inkscape is more illustration than Desktop Publishing, but still...
Until then there's Scribus.
A few years ago, there was somebody scraping the web for headshots, and an amazing number of them where photoshop crops that still had the full original image embedded in them, and a number of them were nudes. He posted the more 'interesting' ones. It was part of an article about the dangers of file metadata.
I wish I had the link right now, but it was years ago.
This bug needs to be fixed, otherwise it may not be usable on some PCs. Otherwise, Inkscape is really great.
There's a long discussion about it here: https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/issues/1614
@je42: It becomes usable though if you Get Info on the Inkscape application in Finder and then check the "Open in Low Resolution" checkbox.
I don't think there is going to ever be much interest in getting this fixed in GTK3, but apparently performance has improved in GTK4, which should be hardware accelerated on macOS now: https://blogs.gnome.org/chergert/2020/12/15/gtk-4-got-a-new-...
I'm looking forward to gimp 3.2 which will have non-destructive editing that is one of the last remaining pieces before it will be more acceptable for professional photography.
GIMP has the potential to become even a powerful compositor[1].
[0] https://www.gimp.org/news/2021/05/08/gimp-2-99-6-released/
[1] https://www.gimp.org/news/2019/04/07/gimp-2-10-10-released/
Also, there are not 2 workflows, one for rectangles and one for arbitrary shapes, which is a good thing.
If I were approaching the problem fresh, though, I would look into the presentation of the modal functions as the root of the issue. The source of a lot of complexity in image editing software is confusion over layers, masks, groups, and selections - they have some conceptual overlap and can be applied modally(e.g. shape as rendering element OR mask OR selection). If the UI buries the difference it just adds to the confusion.
I think having a unified workflow is a good thing, and that that can exist along side important special cases.
A tool like inkscape gets a ton of "casual" once-in-a-while use and some amount of frequent power-user use. It's tricky to facilitate both kinds of use, but I think that should be a goal.
What you wrote is not ridiculous like the following statement, but consider "Yeah, you have to draw by using your text editor on an SVG file. There are not two workflows, one for drawings and one for text, which is a good thing."
http://www.hisutton.com/How%20to%20draw%20sub%20cutaways%20i...
But anyway, that's quite the trip with the submarine cutaways!
If coming new to the game, I feel that using Blender to make it in 3D would give you reusable parts that could be resized, coloured and posed from any angle. Allowing the next "similar engineering object" to be made much faster.
But for someone who has already so clearly mastered their process I suspect that the time taken to master Blender and the frustations involved would detract too much from the joy of their work.
Though I have also found that it's sometimes nice to block things out with Blender so that the camera perspective is easy to work out quickly and the main shape lines are all blocked in...
[0] https://media.inkscape.org/media/doc/release_notes/1.1/Inksc...
And if you put in that much effort, you are going to want to charge for the app. Understandably, iPadOS doesn't have a thriving open source / free culture.
The biggest advantage for me is the actual Wacom pen, which was designed to be held and used for a long time comfortably. The apple pencil is ok but I need something with a thicker grip and putting a pencil grip on the apple pencil covers the two touch buttons and stops you from recharging it.
I still have and use an iPad pro with apple pencil 2 but the Wacom pen is 1000x better.
If you’re looking to get out of the adobe ecosystem i’ve had a pretty positive experience using Affinity Designer on my ipad (no affiliation with either company).
For what it does, Inkscape is one of the very few usable, large open source tools. It has the same problems other OSS projects do (suboptimal UI being one) but it's not tool's fault you expected behavior that's at odds with vector graphics.