I don't know if this already came up some time, at least I haven't found a topic dealing with this...

Often times when I draw something in Inkscape I will export the result to a bitmap and then use Gimp to apply all kinds of color corrections to the image, like

- Hue
- Saturation
- Lightness
- Contrast
- Levels (White, Black, Midtones)

I would love to have this of functionality directly in Inkscape (on the vector objects)- Select a group of objects and apply the desired color correction just by use of a slider like in Gimp and have the result directly visible on canvas.

I am aware of the available filters that allow to desaturate and stuff like that, but to be honest they are a bit too much bare metal for me to use.
Or is there any other way to do what I described - if yes i must have completely missed it

So what do you think ? Would this be a good feature to have in Inkscape ?

EDIT for clarification

Welcome to InkscapeForum!

Have you seen Extensions menu > Raster? If there's a reason why that won't work for you, could you tell us? I haven't used those myself, but it's my impression that they can do what you're describing.

Thanks for the welcome, brynn.

Sorry, I think I didn't make my intention clear enough. I know about Extensions > Raster.
However, I would like to do a colour correction on a group of vector objects.

The functions in Extensions > Raster only seem to work on imported Bitmap(Raster) images.
Should it work on vector objects too ? That would be almost exactly what I'm looking for.

Well, to be honest, I've never used them. But I thought they could be used on vector images..... But no, you're right. I apologize.

What about this? Select your group, then Edit menu > Make a bitmap copy. That will turn your group into a raster (I'm assuming PNG) to which you could then apply the Extension > Raster items. It wouldn't be much different from exporting and opening in GIMP, but at least it would still be on the INkscape canvas. The object would no longer be vector, though.

When you said the existing filters are "too much bare metal" what do you mean? Do you mean that they're hard to adjust??

Edit
Well, some of the color features that GIMP has are found in Inkscape layers, as Blend modes -- Lighten, Darken, Multiply, and Screen. Would those be helpful? Open Layers dialog to see them.

Thanks for the answer, brynn.

About the filters being "bare metal"

Let's assume I'd like to reduce the saturation of a group of objects a bit, but not completely (so I cannot use the simple filter 'Desaturate').

Select group of Objects > Menu Filter > Filter Editor > Click 'Create New Filter' > Select Color Matrix from dropdown menu > Click 'Add Effect' > Select 'Saturation' from Effect parameters > Select Type 'Saturation'> Now I can adjust the saturation with the slider. (That's OK, but there is also a matrix where I can/have to enter values for a linear transformation in color space )

Or If I want to make adjustments to Lightness / Contrast :

Select group of Objects > Menu Filter > Colour > Lightness Contrast > nothing happens, but wait ! - open filter editor ! > A Filter with four effects 'Flood, Blend, Composite, Composite' is created > Now I can edit Effect parameters > Composite Effect parameters have Operators "Over, In, Out, ATop, XOR, Arithmetic" with values "K1,K2,K3, K4" to set...


At this point I'm usually lost and start experimenting...

I don't want to sound negative - I'm a huge Inkscape fan and I actually like the filters and the possibility to edit them quite a bit - very powerful, nondestructive and I'm pretty sure they CAN do what I'm after. However, using the Filter editor feels like having to understand electrodynamics every time you turn on a blender

I think it would be nice to have the most common color corrections like Hue, Saturation, Lightness, Contrast,Levels (White, Black, Midtones) and maybe others available in a separate Menu

e.g. :

Select group of Objects > Menu 'Color' > Saturation/Hue/Lightness/Contrast/Levels > Adjust Saturation/Hue/Lightness/Contrast/Levels with a slider.

Will look into the Layer dialog...

I tend to agree with the orig. poster. In GIMP you can use the slider, etc. to correct photos, so it works really well as a photo editor, it's not the most user friendly program, and I won't draw in GIMP, too complicated for me, but I love it's filters and such.

Ahh, I understand. I suspect that this has been requested before. Maybe we will see it in the not too distant future. You could search Launchpad to find out if it's been requested, and if not, make a new feature request. https://launchpad.net/inkscape. Search bugs, and if not found, make a new bug report (seems strange, I know, but that's how new feature requests are handled)

I found a Bug report (Wishlist Item) from 2006-11-08 that exactly describes the desired functionality. If anyone is interested:

"Dialog for adjusting colors in selection (HSL, brightness/contrast,etc)"
https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/171589

Better yet - there's a New Extension by ~suv dealing with > Color > HSL Adjust in the 0.49 branch
https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/979208

Wouldn't it be great if this would expand to a full color adjustment module eventually ?