Using the Fill by drop-down list, you can restrict the fill algorithm to one the following channels: In the Tool Controls bar: Paint Bucket's perceptual fill can use either all visible colors or specific color channels.

As in all other tools, the style swatch on the far right of the Controls Bar shows the style that will be used for the next fill object you create. You can switch between these modes on this tool's page in Inkscape Preferences ( Ctrl+ Shift+ P). Like all object-creating tools, the Paint Bucket may use the last-set style for the objects it creates (this is the default), or it can use its own fixed style. The Paint Bucket Tool works fairly intuitively: click in any area bounded on all sides and it will fill it with color - or, in reality, a path which can be filled and adjusted like any arbitrary path. Conversely, if the fill leaks out through a small gap, zoom out to make the gap less visible and fill again (or use the auto gap closing parameter - see below). So, if you have a fill that is too imprecise, has rough corners, or doesn't go where it is supposed to go, just undo it ( CTRL + z ), 'zoom in' closer and repeat filling from the same point. This is a very convenient and interactive way of digitizing your paper drawings, making the traditional bitmap tracing unnecessary in many cases.The resolution of the bitmap image used to perform the trace is dependent upon your current zoom level - the more 'zoomed in' to an area that you are, the higher the resolution of the bitmap-based flood fill. It places the rendered path onto the current layer, so you can have a layer on top (for example, 'Inks') and select the layer below ('Colors') and do the fills so that they always appear below the Inks.īecause the tool operates in this way, you can, for example, scan a pencil sketch, import the bitmap into Inkscape, and quickly fill all its cells with colors without tracing the bitmap first. Internally, the tool works by performing a bitmap-based flood fill on a rendered version of the visible canvas, then tracing the resulting fill using potrace and placing the traced path into the document. In short, it will work exactly as if you were filling a rasterized version of your image in a bitmap editor like Photoshop or GIMP - but will give you a vector object to work with.

This means that filling will stop at gradients, blurs, and even the color boundaries in imported bitmaps, but will ignore any paths or other objects that are fully (or almost fully) transparent or for any other reason do not stand out from the background. That is, when looking for the boundaries around the point you clicked, it takes for such boundaries any visible color changes. It is important to note that the tool's operation perceptual, not geometric. Being a vector tool, however, Inkscape's Paint Bucket actually creates a new path that 'fills in' the area in which you clicked. The Bucket Fill Tool is simple - it fills in unfilled areas with color.

Inkscape trace bitmap layers