Inkscape/C2/Fill-color-and-stroke/English

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Title of script: Fill color and stroke

Author: Arthi. A and Saurabh Gadgil

Keywords: Fill color, Gradient and its types, Stroke paint and style


Visual cue
Narration
Opening Slide Welcome to the Spoken Tutorial on “Fill color and stroke” using Inkscape.
Learning Objectives (Slide) In this tutorial, we will learn about
  • Fill color in objects
  • Give objects an outline
  • Various types of gradients and
  • Stroke paint and style


System requirements

(Slide)

For this tutorial, I am using
  • Ubuntu Linux 12.04 OS
  • Inkscape version 0.48.4


Go to Dash home and type “Inkscape”. Let's open Inkscape.

For this, go to Dash home and type Inkscape.

Click on Inkscape logo You can open Inkscape by clicking on the logo.
Open the Assignment.svg Let's open the Assignment.svg file that we created earlier.

I had saved it in my Documents folder.

Point to the shapes on the canvas These are the 3 shapes we created in an earlier assignment.
Point to the color palette Recall that we had learnt to change color using the color palette at the bottom of the interface.
Click on the Fill and Stroke Now we will learn how to fill colors of various types using Fill and Stroke.

Let's go to Object menu, and click on the Fill and Stroke option from the drop down list.

Point to the Fill and Stroke dialog box Notice that the Fill and Stroke dialog box has opened on the right side of the interface.
Point to the 3 tabs There are 3 tabs in this dialog box: Fill, Stroke paint and Stroke style
Click on the rectangle and point to Fill and stroke dialog box Now, we will click on the rectangle in the canvas area.

Observe that the options and icons in the Fill and stroke dialog box get enabled.

Point to the Fill tab First, we will learn about the Fill tab.
Point to the 6 icons Notice there are 6 icons under the Fill tab.

Let us learn what these icons do.

Point to the No paint icon The first icon is called No paint.

It indicates that the object will not be filled with any color.

Click on the icon and point to the rectangle Click on the icon and notice the change in the rectangle.

The color of the rectangle has been removed.

<<PAUSE>>

Point to the Flat color icon The next icon is Flat color. It helps to fill a solid color into an object.
Click on the icon and point to the rectangle Click on the Flat color icon and observe the change of colour in the rectangle shape.
Point to the 5 modes of filling color Under Flat color, notice that there are 5 sub-tabs.
Point to RGB tab By default, RGB tab is selected.
Point to the RGB slider Under RGB tab, there are 4 sliders.

The first 3 sliders indicates the intensity of Red, Green and Blue colours.

Move the sliders in left or right directions We can change the color by moving these sliders in left or right directions.

Observe the color change in the rectangle as I do so.

Point to Alpha slider. The fourth slider is the Alpha slider.

With this, we can increase or decrease the opacity level of the colour from opaque to fully transparent.

Pointing to the RGBA box As I move these 4 sliders, observe that
  • the RGBA value of the color
  • shown in this box,
  • changes automatically.


Move one/two sliders in left or right directions Let me move the sliders once again so that you can observe this change.
Point to the value of colors * We can change the color manually
  • by changing the values of each color
  • in the boxes at the right of the sliders.


Change the color values of Red, green and blue Let me change the value of Red to 100, Green to 50 and Blue to 150.

Notice the color of the rectangle has now changed to violet.

Point to the Alpha slider I keep the Alpha level as 255 since I do not want to reduce the opacity level.

<<PAUSE>>

Point the HSL tab The next tab is HSL and it stands for Hue, Saturation and Lightness respectively.
Adjust the Hue slider We can use the Hue slider to get a base color.

I move the slider towards the left direction to get a base of green color

Adjust the Saturation slider We can adjust the saturation of the base colour using the Saturation slider.

Observe the change in the saturation level by moving the slider in left or right directions.

Adjust the Lightness slider The Lightness slider adjusts the lightness of the base color.

With this option one can vary the shade of the base colour

  • from pure white to pure black
  • or any shade in-between.


Point to the Alpha slider As before, the Alpha slider is used
  • to increase or decrease the opacity level
  • from opaque to fully transparent.


Point to each slider of CMYK The next tab is CMYK which denotes Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black respectively.
Move the sliders in the left or right directions By moving these sliders, we can increase or decrease the intensity or the depth of the base colour.

This color mixing option is useful when design projects are to be printed on commercial presses.

Point to Wheel tab Next is the Wheel tab. This is an alternative representation of the HSL color mixer.
Click on the outer ring on the Wheel We can select the base hue by clicking on the color ring that is based on the standard color wheel.

So, I will click on yellow shade to select a base of yellow color.

Click inside the triangle on the Wheel Within the color circle, there is a triangle with a small circle inside it.

Just click on it and drag it inside the triangle and observe the color change in the rectangle.

Point to CMS tab The CMS tab will only be of real interest to those working in color managed environments.

For now, we will skip this tab.

<<PAUSE>>

Next, let us learn how to create a Linear gradient.
Click on the circle. Go to canvas and click on the circle.
Click on Linear gradient icon Now come back to the Fill and Stroke dialog box and click on the Linear gradient icon.
Point to the circle. Observe the gradient fill in the circle.
Point to gradient name The gradient will be given a name ending with a series of random numbers.

In my interface, the number is linearGradient3794. In yours, it may be different.

Click on Edit button We can change the gradient
  • by clicking the Edit button,
  • which is right below the linear gradient number button.

This will open the Gradient editor dialog box.

Point to the stop button The top button in this box is named stop followed by some random numbers and it contains a drop down menu.

If you click the arrows on this drop down, you will see two stop options.

Click on the transparent stop The first one denotes the pure base colour.

The other one is half checker board, indicating that it's transparent.

Select the second option, that is, the transparent stop option.

Change the RGB values >> Go to the Stop Color below.

Change the RGB values to whichever color you like, by moving the sliders.

Make Alpha value to 255 Keep Alpha value at 255, to make the gradient fully visible.

Close the Gradient editor dialog box.

<<PAUSE>>

Click on Edit path by nodes tool Now we can change the gradient angle.

To do so, click on Node tool from the tool box, on the left of the interface. This is located right below the Selector tool.

Point to the line This will display a line on the circle.

This line represents the gradient.

Point to the handles. This currently overlap with the square handle and the arc handle of the circle.
Move all the gradient line handles till the handles are seen clearly. We will have to move the gradient line handles a little bit, so that we can see the handles clearly.
Move the handles Click and drag the circular handle or the square handle to change the position where the gradient starts and ends.
== Rotate the gradient == We can also rotate the direction of the gradient by moving the circular handle, as demonstrated.

<<PAUSE>>

Click on the Radial gradient Now we will learn how to use Radial gradient.

Click on the icon and observe the gradient change in the circle.

The Radial gradient is formed in a circular shape.

Point to square and circular handles >> Click and drag on any square handle Notice 1 square handle and 2 circular handles.

Click on the middle square handle to move the gradient's starting point. I will move it to the bottom left.

Click and drag on any circular handles Click and drag on any one of the circular handles, to make changes in the gradient.

Observe the change in the height and width of the gradient shape.

<<PAUSE>>

Point to Gradient tool We can find the Gradient tool in the Tool box also.

Let's click on it and come back to our circle.

Notice that the cursor has now changed into plus sign with capital I.
Click inside the circle and drag. Now, click anywhere inside the circle and drag.

Notice the change in the gradient.

Click outside the circle and drag. Now, click anywhere outside the circle and drag.

Notice the change in the gradient.

<<PAUSE>>

Click on the star shape Next we will learn how to overlay various patterns on shapes.

Go to Tool box, click on the Selector tool and then click on the star shape.

Click on Pattern icon In the Fill and stroke dialog box, click on the Pattern icon.

Notice, the color of the star has changed to a stripe pattern.

Click on Patterns fill There is a drop down menu under Pattern fill.

Click on the arrows to see the available patterns.

Point to the patterns Let's click on Checkerboard and observe the change in the star shape.

You can use any of these available patterns shown here.

<<PAUSE>>

Point to the Swatch icon We will learn about Swatch in another tutorial.

<<PAUSE>>

Click on Unset paint The last icon called Unset paint, is used to unset the color of the selected object to black.

Click on the icon and observe the color change in the star.

It has changed to black.

<<PAUSE>>

Point to the Stroke paint


Now, let us learn how to give stroke or an outline to an object.

To do this, we have to use the Stroke paint tab.

Click on Stroke paint Now, click on Stroke paint tab and click on the rectangle.
Point to the icons The icons under the Stroke paint tab are the same as the Fill tab.

They function in the same manner, as well.

Click on No paint With the first icon, that is No paint, we remove the outline of the shape.
Move the mouse around the rectangle. Next, we will click on Flat color icon.

We see a black color outline around the rectangle shape.

Increase the width parameter and then decrease it to show the change in the thickness of the outline. We can increase or decrease the thickness of the outline using the Stroke style tab.
Change the width parameter Let's keep the width parameter as 10.

We can also change the units into percentage, point, etc. depending on our requirement.

I will keep the unit as Pixels.

Move the RGB slider Let's go back again to the Stroke paint tab.

We can change the color of the stroke, by moving the sliders under the RGB tab.

Observe the color change in the outline, as I do so.

Point to the Flat color tabs Explore the other Flat color options such as HSL, CMYK, Wheel and CMS on your own.
Click on Linear gradient Now, let me click on the Linear gradient.

This gives a gradient outline to the rectangle shape.

Click on the drop-down The gradients that we used earlier, will appear in the drop down list here.

We can use any of those, too.

Select the last option Let me give red and blue gradient outline to my rectangle.
Click on each Stroke icons In a similar way, we can use the remaining stroke icons and give some interesting patterns and gradient outlines to our objects.

<<PAUSE>>

Stroke style Next we will learn about Stroke style.

Click on it.

Point to the width option We already learnt how to modify the width of the stroke.
Point to the Joint icons Now, lets look at the 3 Join icons namely, Miter join, Round join and Bevel join.

By default, the stroke is in Miter join.

Zoom into one corner of the rectangle. Let me zoom in to one of the corners of the rectangle for a better view.
Click on the Round join Now, let's click on the Round join, to give a round corner to the stroke.

Observe the changes in the edges of the stroke.

Click on the Bevel join Next, we will click on the Bevel join option to create a Bevel corner.

<PAUSE>

Point to Dash pattern

>> Click on any one

Click on the width drop-down on the right.

Various dash patterns are available in the Dashes drop down menu.

Using these, we can give different dash patterns to the stroke, and vary the width, too.

<<PAUSE>>

Point to the Cap option Next is the Cap option. This basically works on line strokes.
Click on Freehand tool >> draw 3 lines. Go to Tool box. Click on Freehand tool.

So, let us draw a line with the help of Freehand tool.

Zoom in Now, let's zoom in to the end of the line.
Point to the Butt cap By default, Butt cap is selected and it gives a flat edge to the end.
Click on Round cap Now I will click on the Round cap, to give a rounded edge.



Click on the Square cap >> Next, is the Square cap which gives a flat and extended edge to the ends of the line.

<<PAUSE>>

Point to the Markers These are 3 Markers right below the Dashes tab, which places markers on the middle of the path.

Click on the drop down menu of each Marker to see the available lists.

Point to the Start marker >> Click on Torso Under Start Markers, let me select Torso.
Point to the Mid marker >> Click on Curvein We will select Curvein as Mid markers.
Point to the End marker >> Click on Legs For the End Markers, we will select Legs.
Point to the shape Observe a cartoon shape is formed on the canvas.

<<PAUSE>>

Point to Blur and Opacity Lastly, notice 2 sliders at the bottom of the Fill and stroke dialog box,

namely, Blur and Opacity.

Select the rectangle Let's first select the rectangle again.
Click the move the Blur slider The Blur slider is used to give a blur effect to an object. I will click on the slider and move it towards the right.

Observe that the rectangle becomes blurred, as I move the slider more and more to the right.

<<PAUSE>>

Click the move the Opacity slider The Opacity slider is used to give transparency to a shape.

Move the slider to the right and observe the changes in the shape.

<<PAUSE>>

Summary (Slide) Let us summarize.

In this tutorial we learnt to

  • Fill color in objects, using the Fill and Stroke options
  • Give strokes or outlines to shapes
  • Various types of Gradients and
  • Stroke Paint and Stroke Styles


Assignment (Slide) Here is an assignment for you

1. Create a pentagon filled with a Linear gradient of red and yellow color with a blue stroke of width 5 pixels.

2. An ellipse filled with Wavy pattern and change the opacity to 70%

3. A line with a width of 10, with Start Markers as Arrow1Lstart and End Markers as Tail.

Completed assignment Your completed assignment should look like this.
About Slide The video available at the following link summarizes the Spoken Tutorial project. Pls watch it.
About Slide The Spoken Tutorial Project Team conducts workshops and gives certificates for those who pass an online test.

For more details, please write to us.

About Slide Spoken Tutorial Project is supported by the NMEICT, MHRD, Government of India.

More information on this Mission is available at this link.

Acknowledgment We have come to the end of this tutorial.

This is Arthi and Saurabh from IIT Bombay, signing off.

Thanks for joining.

Contributors and Content Editors

Arthi, Nancyvarkey