I've been trying to convert my church's logo from a bitmap into a svg file for weeks. I've tried multiple different combinations of Inkscape's trace bitmap tool, but to no avail. The logo only contains three colors, including white. Nothing worked. So, I downloaded another tool, XTool.. and it worked first try! It immediately outlined everything in paths and that was that. No fumbling with settings. Just select to trace the bitmap and that was it.

I like how feature rich Inkscape's trace bitmap tool it, but there is such a thing as too complicated. Sometimes simple is best.

I uploaded the problem part of the logo for reference. Inkscape struggled and failed to trace and differentiate between the cross and the tan interior of the shield. I've tried everything from converting the image to black and white, recoloring it to have higher contrasting colors, tried every different option that Inkscape provides. It never worked.

Inkscape default settings. One click

This one is a little more involved. To get the "tan" interior I used the Paint Bucket tool. Sometimes this method is easier than using a Color Trace. Sometimes not.  Used the Eyedropper tool to set all the colors to the original.  Maybe 5 minutes total time?

Third method - MultiColor Trace but removed the background and put it back in using the Paint Bucket tool. Lot faster than the previous method. You end up with 3 layers(red,tan and white). Yup - you're right - needs a better way. It is only 3 colors.  lol

Edit: Multicolor Trace bitmap is using both the white and the transparent layers as background. With a transparent PNG file, only the transparent layer should be treated as a background. If that was fixed (is it a "bug"?) - no need for the paint bucket tool. 

Ok - looked into this a little deeper. 

Feature request explaining the issue : https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inbox/-/issues/11003

Uncheck "Remove Background" - trace for 4 Colours - select the 4 corner nodes of the white background - Edit->Select All - hit Backspace to delete.

Polygon - One of the first tricks you taught me with the paint bucket tool. However, I tried that with this image yesterday and ended up with a mess.

It could be I selected the wrong nodes. Let me go try it again! 

Ok - that didn't work either. 

When I changed the scans back to default 8 - it worked. However you end up with 8 objects with a "trillion" nodes. 

Are you stacking perhaps? Works here:

Nope - not stacking. This is what shows up in the preview with 4 scans. Works great with 8 scans. Except you end up with 8 groups with a "trillion" nodes. 
Windows 11 - v1.4.1rc

EDIT: Worked on 6,7,8 scans. Now I am wondering if the wrong potrace library is used for Windows? lol

COD

EDIT: Worked on 6,7,8 scans. Now I am wondering if the wrong potrace library is used for Windows? lol

Call me lucky then. 😂

These system differences drive me insane.

Me too - more so some system-wide macOS default shortcuts refuse to work in Inkscape and can't be redeployed.

I'm glad to see someone else is having trouble! 🤣 I've tried this on Windows 11 and Mac OS 13.something.

Imagine a new user watching a five year old Youtube video. 🤣

LOL - I just figured out why I used the Bucket fill method to do the tan layer in this: https://inkscape.org/forums/beyond/can-we-get-a-simple-and-effective-bitmap-to-path-tool/#c78423

If you zoom in closely to the multicolor trace, the tan layer is bleeding into the outside shield border. 

For what its worth, my experimenting on Windows 11, Inkscape 4.1

dwhall - 

Yet another method - lol

EDIT: I had node edit the tan layer quite a bit to eliminate the ghost banding around the shield border.