Tracing tools

The Painting window's toolkit

Tracing tools

The Trace Brush tool adds lines to the drawing's Trace layer in a freehand form.

To change the tool so it draws straight lines, hold down the Alt key.

To set the line quality (i.e. the size and smoothness of the lines drawn), either use the Trace Sample tool (see below), or choose Options > Traced Line Quality, and use the dialog that appears.

The Regions Toggle tool can be used to set whether or not this tool also adds region lines (see below).

The Trace Erase tool is used to erase lines from the Trace layer. It will erase both lines that have been added by the Trace Brush tool, and lines that are a part of the original drawing. The lines are temporarily stored in an Unerase layer; you can later use the Trace Unerase tool to restore the lines to the drawing; see below.

Normally, the tool works in a freehand form. You can instead use this tool to erase lines within a bounding box; hold down the Alt key, and drag out the bounding box.

The Regions Toggle tool can be used to set whether or not this tool also erases region lines (see below).

The Trace Unerase tool restores erased lines to the trace layer, undoing the effect of the Trace Erase tool. It copies the erased lines from the Unerase layer back into the Trace layer.

Normally, the tool works in a freehand form. You can instead use this tool to unerase all erased lines within a bounding box; hold down the Alt key, and drag out the bounding box.

Note that the Unerase layer is discarded each time you save your work; so, once you have saved your work, you can no longer unerase any erased lines. Also, this tool will not restore any erased region lines; for this, you need to undo your changes in the usual way, by choosing Edit > Undo.

The Trace Sample tool sets the line quality of the Trace Brush tool to match a sampled line. Drag a bounding box around the line you wish to match.

The Traced Line Quality dialog is updated to match the line you've chosen. You can then use this dialog to fine tune the line quality; if it's not displayed, choose Options > Traced Line Quality.

The Regions Toggle tool controls whether or not the Trace Brush and Trace Erase tools also add and remove lines to the drawing's region layer. The tool has two modes, which you can toggle between by clicking on the icon:

When the tool is selected (i.e. is a different color to most of the other tools), adding or erasing trace lines also changes the region layer.

When the tool is not selected (i.e. is the same color as most of the other tools), adding or erasing trace lines does not change the region layer.

The Painting window's toolkit

Tracing tools