Hi Friends,
Here I am again, with another question! I think I've figured it out, but I want to confirm, before I spend hours learning the wrong thing, lol.

It appears there is no cropping tool, in Inkscape. So does one accomplish cropping an image using a Mask?

Assuming that's correct, what's the difference between a Clip and a Mask? I should say that I have looked through the various resources listed here. But I'm not quite understanding it. It almost sounds like they are opposites, like one is the other inverted? I'm sure things will become more clear, once I've had some practice at it, but for now, can someone give me just kind of a broad, general description of a Clip, as compared to a Mask?

Much appreciation for your help and patience

The easiest thing is to clip it. draw a rect over the bit you want to keep, then do object>clip

brynn wrote:what's the difference between a Clip and a Mask? I should say that I have looked through the various resources listed here.

Did you find this page - http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/Clip.html
I think it offers the best explanation.

I also talk about it here - http://www.microugly.com/inkscape-quickguide/#work-clip

But basically, a CLIP uses the shape of the object to restrict what you see. A MASK does this also, but it also uses colour to effect what is seen, where black areas will be transparent, white areas will opaque, and grey areas will be semi-transparent.

Yes, I had seen both of those references, but was still sort of fuzzy about it. But your explanation, about the Mask using color to achieve a certain affect, makes it clear enough for now. So could one say that the Clip strictly defines the shape of what will be seen (through), where the Mask offers shape AND color effects?

Btw, I've successfully figured out how to use the Clip, for the "project" I'm working on (which btw is really just playing around).

Whoa! Did we get new smilies?

Clip is visible anywhere there is any color in the defining clip shape.
Mask uses the white level of the mask object to define an alpha channel on the object being masked, so pure white will be solid, a grey of 50% white will be 50% visible, a dark grey will be barely visible. I find clips a lot easier to work with, but masks are more useful if you dont want hard edges.

brynn wrote:Whoa! Did we get new smilies?

Yeah Just trialling them atm.

Here is a great visual tutorial on Clipping / Cropping with inkscape:
http://inkscapetutorials.wordpress.com/ ... -inkscape/

cheers,
ryanlerch

I'm glad I looked through for others having the problem. I didn't want to start another topic

Simarilius wrote:Clip is visible anywhere there is any color in the defining clip shape.
Mask uses the white level of the mask object to define an alpha channel on the object being masked, so pure white will be solid, a grey of 50% white will be 50% visible, a dark grey will be barely visible. I find clips a lot easier to work with, but masks are more useful if you dont want hard edges.

Is there any way to flip that so that it uses black instead of white? I work with a lot of dark objects. This would be a perfect tool but only if it was in reverse. Should I invert the colors of the object, mask, then invert again?