On Sat, 10 Oct 2009 15:16:13 -0400 David Knecht ATT <david.knecht@...2671...> wrote:
I am new to Inkscape and trying it out as a way of labeling images for publication. First, is there a way to search the archives for answers? Second, is there a way to get Inkscape to display the resolution of an image in dpi or ppi? Also, where do you adjust the ruler settings?
Inkscape can be a good choice for adding labels on top of images, particularly if you're going to export the image in a format which combines bitmap and vector, like .pdf or .eps. I'm assuming you want to add labels / scale bars / arrows pointing to features on top of a photograph.
If you're publishing say a 300x300 pixel crop from micrograph of something, and it's going to be printed about 3 inches across on a 2400 dpi output device (i.e. a journal), creating a .pdf or .eps this way gives you nice sharp edges on the labels you add on top of the image, even though the image itself is going to be a little coarse.
You don't really need to worry about resolution until you export the image, the export image dialog shows you both the size in pixels and the dpi of the export you're creating. As long as the export is as large or slightly larger, pixel wise, than the photograph you're labeling, you won't be losing resolution, but there will probably be some resampling of the image, so it won't be pixel identical with the input photo.
I think the ruler uses the "default units" setting from the document settings dialog (far right of the top tool bar). If you want to make the change permanent you need to edit and save the default template in the templates directory, e.g. /usr/share/inkscape/templates. Seems there should be a user local path for this, but I don't know it.
Cheers -Terry