Hi everybody! I am new to this forum, but have been using Inkscape for quite some time. By the way, I am German, and so English is my second language. I hope that I can make myself understood and try to be as clear as possible.
I have been doing some pastel paintings and pencil drawings, and some of them I use as reference for vectorizing. So I embed a scanned drawing, add a second layer, and use the pentool. I save the file as svg and as eps. The eps I need to work with it in photoshop in order to prepare the design for certain sizes (I#ve got a Zazzle shop and need to put the design on mugs, mousepads and the like). Now the problem: the eps comes with a white background. I can use the magic wand to delete that background in photoshop, but is there a possibility of saving the Inkscape file as eps on a transparent background?
I am glad to have found you, by the way - this is a great place! And thanks very much in advance for any helpful comment!
Ulla

Welcome ulla!

I'm not terribly familiar with other vector formats besides SVG. But I did some quick research via Wikipedia, and found this, whic indicates that EPS supports transparency -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparency_(graphic). But it's possible that the tool that Inkscape uses to convert from SVG to EPS doesn't handle the transparency.

That said, the Inkscape background is transparent by default, yet still looks white. Have you actually tried to use a finished product (EPS) and found the background not transparent?

Also, I'm not completely clear what you're asking

The eps I need to work with it in photoshop in order to prepare the design for certain sizes (I#ve got a Zazzle shop and need to put the design on mugs, mousepads and the like). Now the problem: the eps comes with a white background. I can use the magic wand to delete that background in photoshop, but is there a possibility of saving the Inkscape file as eps on a transparent background?

because if you're going to photoshop anyway....? Or do you mean that you would like to skip that step if possible? Or for that matter, could you skip EPS altogether, and use the SVG (which already is transparent)?

Thanks for taking the time to answer!
1. Whenever I placed the eps into my photoshop file I've got it surrounded with a white background. When it is just a vector image with one colour, I can easily remove the white background with the magic wand. But it gets more difficult when there is white somewhere in the vector image. I used eps because I always thought that's the format to use when you want to scale it up without loss and pixelation.
2. Yes, I thought it would be possible to avoid the eps, but photoshop doesn't recognize svg.
3. Yesterday I tried the png export. The funny thing is when I opened the photoshop file and inserted the png, I've got some white space. So I
4. opened the png file (transparent background here) and the photoshop file where I wanted to place the png, selected the vector image in the png file, copied the selection and pasted it in the photoshop file.
5. So this seems to be a solution to my problem: export svg to png. Keep the png file as a kind of source from which the content can be easily copied and inserted into photoshop.
6. The only question now is: what about pixelation when I enlarge the object in photoshop?

Ok, I understand your situation and your problem now.
Yes, in the PNG format, you will get pixelation when you enlarge it.
I'm surprised, I thought PhotoShop could import SVG. I still have a lot to learn about other formats and graphics programs. Because SVG will also enlarge without loss, so it's really too bad PS can't open it.

Beyond that, I'm not sure. Someone else will have to jump in here, because I just don't know that much about EPS. The Wikipedia says transparency is supported, so I'm guessing it's the part of Inkscape that does the conversion to EPS that loses the original transparency.

Could you give the white parts within the image some other color before exporting, then after export and removing white background, replace the original white areas in PhotoShop?

I'm having the same issue, and so far haven't found a way to get an EPs with a transparent background either. I'm exporting as a png, then open it in GIMP, then save as an EPS, this puts in a white background as well, so I'm thinking it has to do with the EPS.
I'm interested to see if anyone has a better solution for keeping the transparency too.
dee

Well, I've just searched the forums, and found some more info.

First, in 3 different topics people stated emphatically that EPS does not support transparency. On the Wikipedia page I linked to above, it says, "Most vector formats implicitly support transparency because they simply avoid putting any objects at a given point. This includes EPS and WMF." So there's a conflict that I hope someone can explain for us. Perhaps the Wiki is wrong?

Also in one topic, someone said that in Inkscape version 0.46, converting SVG to EPS does preserve transparency. So one option for you might be to install 0.46. You could still keep your current version (as long as you install to different folder). The only problem I see in using 0.46 to convert SVG to EPS, is that if you have used any new features that might have been added to Inkscape since then, 0.46 might not be able to handle it. But I think it's definitely worth investigating!

The funny thing is that photoshop can import ai (Adobe illustrator) files, but no svg yet. I would rather not come back to 0.46, because I like the things you've got with 0.48. So up to now I see two alternatives:
1. export as eps and remove white background with magic wand in photoshop (which is not only time consuming but also risky - i discovered a few times that I've left some white spaces unremoved which looked ugly on the final product
2. export to png and risk pixelation. I need the tranparency because doing this you can let people decide what backgrounds they can choose with the design.
I dare to say that there will be only a small possibilty for us to get photoshop to read svgs; maybe our influence on inkscape might be bigger to make them think about eps and transparency?
And thanks everybody for joining the discussion!

I would rather not come back to 0.46, because I like the things you've got with 0.48.

You don't have to "go back". You can keep and use the current version. And just use 0.46 for the Export/Save As.

Interesting that we have two different sources of info about EPS supporting and then not supporting transparency, from experience I'm saying it doesn't, unless there is a trick we don't know about yet (here's hoping for that one). I also need both white and transparency backgrounds, and really don't want to install another version of Inkscape either to be honest. I just have a feeling it isn't going to work as we hope (otherwise wouldn't someone have kept it), and, if in fact v.46 can support EPS transparency well, why couldn't we simply get this feature back in the next upgrade? maybe that's the answer, getting the feature back.
Brynne - you're so good at researching answers, thanks much for your suggestions too! I'm crossing fingers we'll have a decent work around.

Argh, I knew I was going to regret not providing links. And of course it took me forever to find it again....

Anyway, here's the link to the one regarding 0.46. It explains why 0.46 can retain the transparency and why it was changed. Honestly, if it's the only way, I wouldn't mind keeping an old version around. There's really no harm, unless you just don't have the hard drive space.

But anyway, there you have it