Hi all, sorry to bother with my questions again.

This time, I have imported a raster image which I am tracing manually with the bezier curves tool - once I have finished tracing, how do I remove the original raster image so I can colour and alter my new 'vector trace' as I like? As usual, I am probably missing out a very obvious step but I have searched to no avail...

Many thanks!

You can color and alter the vector part whether you remove the imported image or not. If you truly want to remove it, just select it with the Selection tool, and delete. However, I would suggest not deleting it, and instead moving it to a new layer, and hide the layer. Then if you happen to need it later, it's still there for you to consult, and alread perfectly aligned.

To hide it on a new layer, first add a new layer (Layer menu). Then Layer menu > Move to layer above or below (depending on where you put the new layer). Then at the bottom of the Inkscape window, you can select that new layer, then click the little eye icon. You'll see the little eye close, which means the layer is hidden and can't be drawn on or seen.

Often when I'm tracing something like you're doing, I put the raster image in Layer 1, and reduce the opacity of the layer (can be done in Layers dialog). Sometimes it helps in the tracing to have the raster image fainter (partially transparent), but sometimes it's better to leave it alone. Then I create a new Layer (creatively named Layer 2 ), and draw on that layer. After I'm finished, then I just hide layer 1.

There is a minor problem in doing it this way. And that is that I always forget to activate layer 2 before I start to draw. So I end up drawing on layer 1, and then have to move what I've drawn later. But I think that's a minor inconvenience, and really just me being absent-minded.