Pardon me if this question may sound stupid, yet am very green with inkscape.

When .png (black/white) turned into the vector (the 8 shades of gray), I need to select ALL the nodes one every object. Yet, when using nodes select tool, and click on any of the grey areas (as shown on the pic above), it selects ONLY that particular shade of grey, yet I need all of the nodes. Ctrl and A doesn't seem to work, nor when one shade selected keeping the ctrl pressed doesn't allow me to select more nodes. Using ubuntu. Please help.

Welcome to InkscapeForum!

There are some situations....for example, you might want to only select those nodes of a certain gray color....where you can select directly with the Node tool. But typically, one would use the Selection tool, to select the object or objects, first. And then switch to the Node tool.

Please refer to the instructional material in my forum signature for details -- especially Help menu > Inkscape manual.

There are many tricks for selecting in many various situations. And often it will depend on your own personal preferences -- i.e. whether you prefer key shortcuts or not. And note that there are a very few situations where the only way to perform certain edits, is with keyboard, because there really is no button or menu item for it. Anyway, if this traced image is the only content in the file, you could use Ctrl + A which will select all the objects visible in the file. Then switch to the Node tool, using either icon/button on the gui, or the Node tool shortcut (whatever it is) (I don't use it much personally).

However, probably the original image is still there in the file, probably behind all the new vector objects. So Ctrl + A will select it too. How you handle that will depend on what you find works best for you. Some people might select the new vector objects and move them over, to separate them from the original image. Then you could do Ctrl + A, hold Shift key, and click once on the original image. That deselects the image, and leaves all the vector objects selected. Or some people might prefer dragging a selection box (using Selection tool) around all the new vector objects, and then switch to the Node tool.

And there are some other selection techniques as well, which might not necessarily apply to this situation. Don't forget about the manual, as you begin your journey with Inkscape

PS -- Something like an object manager has been a much requested new feature for Inkscape. I hope it will come sooner than later. With a feature like that, you could find your object in a list, and click on it there, which would select it on the canvas. Omgoodness, that would be so helpful for hard-to-select objects! But unless you have programming skills and want to join the development team, we can only wait

PPS -- And for one more option -- after using Trace Bitmap, all the various colors will usually be stacked on top of each other, and importantly Grouped. You can click once on the group. Then Object menu > Ungroup (Or command bar button). Then switch to the Node tool.

Dear brynn,

As mentioned above, couldn't ctrl-a in a select mode, then in a node sel. mode, but the UNGROUP advice was exactly what I needed in order to select all the nodes. Also agree the object tree would be of a big help!

Thanks a million for encouraging me to draw further and donate!