Inkscape

shifting half of an image

Asked by Bill Mehlman

I have a scanned image of a double-page spread from a magazine. There's a line down the middle of the image where the pages met (I didn't make the scan), and the two pages are slightly out of register vertically. I'd like to be able to cut half of the image--that is, one page--and move it very slightly so that the vertical line would disappear and the text at the bottom would be aligned. Is this possible?

Many thanks. I'm new to Inkscape, and it's fabulous. Beats GIMP six ways to Tuesday.

Bill

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Guillermo Espertino (Gez)
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Best Guillermo Espertino (Gez) (gespertino-gmail) said : 		#1

Bill:
First you're mixing oranges and apples... GIMP is a bitmap image editor and Inkscape is a vector illustration program.
Although it's possible to do what you want using inkscape, you should rather use GIMP to edit your scanned images, not inkscape. GIMP has a more appropriate toolkit for the tasks needed in bitmap images manipulation.

Anyway: Duplicate your image, draw a rectangle over the part you want to preserve (on both halves) select the image first, then the rectangle using shift+click, and go to Object>Clip>Apply
The rectangle will create a clip and only the part of the image covered by the rectangle will be visible.
Do the same with the other half and align them.
If yo need to tweak the position of one of the halves, release the clip and nudge the bitmap (you can remove the fill of the rectangle and apply a stroke, or use transparency to be able the actual position of the covered area). Then re-apply the clip.

In GIMP it would be much easier and faster. You only have to select one of the halves using the rectangular selection tool, CTRL+L to convert to layer the selection, click on the new layer button to apply the floating selection into a new layer and nudge it using the move tool. When the desired half is in the right position, flatten the image and crop it to preserve only the desired area.

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Bill Mehlman (william-mehlman) said : 		#2

Thanks very much.

As for apples and oranges, I have no doubt that I'm making fruit salad.

Anything much beyond Word and I'm a disaster.

Thanks again for your clear, jargon-free explanation.

Bill

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Guillermo Espertino (Gez) (gespertino-gmail) said : 		#3

Well, my explanation contained a couple of jargon words. If you could understand it then you are not such a disaster beyond Word ;-)

For the record:
Bitmap images are jpg, png, gif, png files. Usually photos or images downloaded from the www. These images are formed by "pixels", and if you zoom in you can see the actual colored blocks that conform the image. GIMP is a program for manipulating bitmap images.

Vector images are images created by curves, lines and mathematical models. They can be enlarged or reduced without becoming pixelated. Vector images are usually less complex than bitmap images, because they are conformed by shapes, although some artists can create amazing stuff using vectors. Logos and cliparts use to be done in vectors.
The primary application of Inkscape is creating vector illustration.