5

I often need to take a bitmap (.png) image, and draw some lines or text on top of it, and possibly export a new, thusly "annotated" image.

I know I can basically do all this in inkscape - but inkscape is a complex program, and it needs almost a minute to start up properly on my PCs.

So I was thinking - is there something like a "mini" vector editor for Linux, which would start up fast, and allow me to:

  • Right-click, open an image in this editor program
  • The program scales the active "document"/"window size" to the size of the image
  • I can zoom in/zoom out (and possibly crop) the image
  • I can add at least lines, boxes and text in different colors?

A bonus for me would be to have the overlay graphics saved as SVG format, say with the same filename as the image - as in, "image.png.svg" being saved in the same directory where the original "image.png" is located (thus allowing opening and editing these "annotations" further, either in this editor, or possibly in inkscape). And another bonus would be the export of the annotated image to a bitmap.

Anyone know about anything like this?

EDIT (May 20, '12): Adding a link to related (but slightly different) post: Command line SVG and image file viewer in Linux? - Super User

Community
  • 1
sdaau
  • 5,316
  • 8
  • 60
  • 77
  • 1
    Have you tried OpenOffice (or LibreOffice now) Draw? It can do all except the `right-click open`. – ott-- Nov 01 '11 at 17:35
  • Thanks for that, @ott-- :: same problem as `inkscape` - its big, loads somewhat slow on my machine, plus it's not that easy to work with (I always have a hard time selecting exactly the graphic that I want in LO/OO Draw :) ) ... Cheers! – sdaau Nov 01 '11 at 18:05
  • 1
    Check this list too http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vector_graphics_editors – ott-- Nov 01 '11 at 18:27
  • Nice - thanks for that, @ott-- - some of those editors listed there I see for the first time.. Cheers! – sdaau Nov 01 '11 at 19:14
  • 1
    @sdaau There may be ways to speed up InkScape's startup. The reason for it's slow start up is that it is scanning for new plugins, fonts, etc. – iglvzx Nov 22 '11 at 00:54
  • Thanks for that, @iglvzx - will give that a try... Cheers! – sdaau Nov 22 '11 at 21:34
  • @sdaau What did you end up using? Thanks! – Alexandre Martins Apr 03 '12 at 12:56
  • @AlexandreMartins - nothing, really; I just go with `inkscape` or `firefox` as I need to; I hoped otherwise I would get an alternative here, but nothing has come up yet... Cheers! – sdaau Apr 03 '12 at 13:13

3 Answers3

3

Take a look at shuttter. It has image editing capabilities.

The editing is not enabled by default. Take a look at this to see how to enable editing.

Can't Tell
  • 241
  • 1
  • 3
  • 15
  • Many thanks for that, @Can'tTell - I knew `shutter` as a bitmap editing application; so I've just tried it with editing capabilities enabled. To my surprise, when you edit a bitmap .png and add lines, and then 'Export to SVG...', the lines are exported as vectors! Unfortunately, a) it still starts slow on my machine (though only the first time) and b) it can't reimport SVG with vectors (`shutter` rasterizes vectors before starting the edit). So I'll still keep this question open for a little while... Many thanks again - cheers! – sdaau May 12 '12 at 07:00
1

  1. Image Edit Lite is a great little program for quickly annotating jpeg images. It's windows based but you can run it on Linux PC via WINE.

    http://www.whispersolutions.com/ImageEditLite.html

    http://www.winehq.org/

    once you've installed WINE - there's a 'configure wine' option where you can get WINE to handle windows applications in particular ways. Under the Graphics tab there are some options regarding Windows Manager which you should UNcheck in the case of ImageEditLite.

kupitt
  • 11
  • 1
  • Many thanks for that @kupitt - great to know, although I'd prefer a native open source solution... Cheers! – sdaau Feb 26 '12 at 18:23
-3

TGIF vector editor can import png files and add vectors. Also, print pdf.

Korny
  • 1
  • Welcome to Super User! Please read [how to recommend software in answers](https://meta.superuser.com/questions/5329/how-do-i-recommend-software-in-my-answers), particularly the bits in **bold**; then edit your answer to follow the guidelines there. Thanks! – bertieb Jan 07 '19 at 07:29