Newbie: Benefits of Inkscape?

[Verleen]

Hi, I'm new to digital scrapbooking. I am not technically proficient and can use only very user friendly software. I have Adobe Photoshop Elements and do very little with it, picture formatting stuff, repairing, creating png files from jpeg files, etc. The layers thing is way beyond me. The Wacom pen and tablet were way beyond me. I would like to learn how to make my own digital embellishments for digital scrapbooking, but without having a nervous breakdown. I am considering getting SCAL and Inkscape, but worried I would be buying more software that I cannot use.

So my questions re Inkscape are this:

How user friendly is it for a digital idiot?
What can it do that Elements can't?
Can I be happy with just SCAL and just cut out images on my Cricut?

Thank you for taking time and having patience with this grandma, Verleen

[Deloris]

Inkscape is NOT a user friendly program. It took me at least 2 months of working with it daily to get the hang of tracing images, breaking them apart, cleaning up nodes, finding out the various features like path/union etc. I am very computer literate and it was a real challenge for me.

SCAL2 is a wonderful program and you do not need Inkscape to use it. There are tons of files right here on the Craft Edge site that are all ready to cut so if you don't want to deal with Inkscape, you would not need to.

But, like any other software SCAL2 has a learning curve. It is easy to learn to open and cut the SCUT files on this site, or import and cut a SVG file, but takes a little more time to learn the trace, break apart and to use the layering or page features. Once you do learn how it works, it is a fantastic program. I use it all the time. It's very addictive.

Here's a link to video that demos SCAL. Will give you a bit better idea of how it works:

http://www.scrappingtable.com/home.html

[Verleen]

Thank you Delores! I think I will just ry SCAL and come here when I run into snags with it. You'll probably be hearing a lot from me. Verleen

[HeatherM]

Once you understand the quirks of Inkscape, it isn't hard to use. It is a free program at http://www.inkscape.org/ so there is no cost to download it and give it a try, then if you don't like it at least you tried. There are so many more things you can do if you use Inkscape.

There are many good tutorials out there for Inkscape. I would find one that does what you would like to try, then sit down with the tutorial and try it. One thing to be aware of is that Inkscape 0.47 needs some different steps than Ink46, so older tutorials might not work well for you.

I have several written tutorials on my blog.
Carolyn at Cutting Time has some very nice videos and written tutorials (love her accent too).

[quinn03]

Delores, you said it, Inkscape is not a very friendly program to learn, I have worked with computers for the last 10 years and Inkscape is not easy at all. I have read from other people on SCAL that they like Inkscape, but it took them a long time to figure it out. I don't know if I have the time or patience for that.

What I am working on right now is being able to type something out on a curve other then using shapes in SCAL or the Circle in SCAL. It's seem it should be easier to do in Inkscape.

[Sweetness4713]

I love inkscape.. I'm not very computer literate and it took me only 3 months to learn inkscape.. I've grown accustomed to it and what I'm able to do in it.. I'm a fast learner and for me 3 months is not a long time at all... I spend at least an hour a day mucking in inkscape designing new designs... Of course I'm always up for a challenge which is probably one of the reasons I love it...

[firstcut]

Verleen,
A lot of us use and talk about Inkscape because we used it back before SCAL can do all it can do now. It is still easier for a person who knows Inkscape to do more complex designs in Inkscape than in SCAL, but a newbie these days really doesn't need Inkscape at all.
Also, PSE and Inkscape are 2 different animals. PSE is a bitmap editing program and Inkscape is a vector editing program. Many people who are familiar with a photo/bitmap editing program like PSE use it to clean up images and then trace them in SCAL. So you could invest a little time in learning PSE instead of Inkscape and it would help you a lot.

For the record, I didn't think Inkscape was very hard to use, either. It has some quirks/bugs which I would compare to dealing with Microsoft products. I am very computer literate and have Adobe Illustrator, too, but there are some things I just like Inkscape better for.