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<aside class="side" aria-label="Guide"><a class="guidebrand" href="index.html"><img src="logo-mono.svg" alt=""> <span>Inkvec Studio</span></a><div class="grp"><h4>User guide</h4><a href="index.html">Overview</a><a href="install.html">Install and first launch</a><a href="getting-started.html">Getting started</a><a href="viewer.html">The viewer</a><a href="result.html">Result</a><a href="tune.html" aria-current="page">Tune</a><a href="palette.html">Palette and colour groups</a><a href="export.html">Export</a><a href="minify.html">Minify SVG</a><a href="fabricate.html">Fabricate</a><a href="batch.html">Batch</a><a href="settings.html">Settings</a><a href="shortcuts.html">Keyboard and mouse</a><a href="troubleshooting.html">Troubleshooting</a></div><div class="grp"><h4>Tutorials</h4><a href="tutorials/jpeg-logo.html">Clean up a JPEG logo</a><a href="tutorials/favicon-asset-pack.html">A favicon and an asset pack</a><a href="tutorials/vinyl-htv.html">Layered vinyl and iron-on</a><a href="tutorials/laser.html">Laser: DXF and G-code</a></div><div class="grp"><h4>Online</h4><a href="https://logolabs.github.io/inkvec/">Inkvec documentation</a><a href="https://logolabs.github.io/inkvec/studio/tune.html">This page on the web</a></div><p class="guidenote">This copy of the guide is part of the app and works without a network.</p></aside>
<main><article><h1 id="tune-presets-and-every-control">Tune: presets and every control</h1>
<p>The <strong>Tune</strong> half of the rail holds the settings for the next trace: ten presets, any presets you
saved, and twenty-three controls. Moving any of them starts a draft at once and a full trace a moment
later (see <a href="viewer.html#draft-and-full-traces">draft and full traces</a>); the readout at the foot of
the rail shows what the change bought or cost.</p>
<p><img alt="The Tune half of the rail: presets, then the Detail group with one control changed" src="img/tune.webp"></p>
<p>The tab's label says how many controls are away from the selected preset (<em>2 changed</em>). If you
are not sure where to start, <strong>Walk me through it</strong> at the top opens the
<a href="getting-started.html#the-custom-wizard">Custom wizard</a> for the image that is open.</p>
<h2 id="how-the-controls-work">How the controls work</h2>
<ul>
<li><strong>Sliders</strong> move a readout while you drag and apply when you let go. The arrow keys move them one
step at a time. The words under a slider (<em>exact</em>, <em>default</em>, <em>coarse</em>) name the ends of its
scale; several sliders are not linear, so that the useful range gets most of the track.</li>
<li><strong>Number fields</strong> beside each slider take a value typed in; it applies on <kbd>Enter</kbd> or
when you leave the field, and is held to the control's range.</li>
<li><strong>Switches</strong> apply at once.</li>
<li><strong>Hover or focus a control's name</strong> to read what it does. The text is the engine's own
documentation for the option, unedited.</li>
</ul>
<p>A control you have moved is marked with a dot. Each group (<strong>Detail</strong>, <strong>Colour</strong>, <strong>Shape</strong>,
<strong>Output</strong>) folds open and shut from its heading, says how many of its controls are changed, and
has its own <strong>Reset</strong>. <strong>Output</strong> starts folded.</p>
<p>The controls are the same ones the <code>inkvec</code> command line has; the Studio only gives them
plain-language names. The table at the end of this page maps them.</p>
<h2 id="the-engine-the-denoiser-and-editable">The engine, the denoiser and Editable</h2>
<p>Three settings sit above both halves of the rail, big, because they are the ones people most often
come for. Each is one control, shown once.</p>
<p><strong>Engine</strong>: <strong>Quality</strong>, <strong>Balanced</strong> or <strong>Fast</strong>. Quality places every edge to a fraction of a pixel
and fits the fewest curves that match the image; it is the default and the closest trace. Fast
traces each shape in a single pass, many times quicker, for previews, batches and very large
images. Balanced sits between them: it is Fast, plus a few steps of Quality's edge placement and a
finer curve fit. On 128 px icons it closes about three fifths of the distance from Fast to
Quality, and two fifths at 512 px, for two to three times Fast's tracing time (a tenth of
Quality's or less). It keeps Fast's flat fills, and its files are about as large as Fast's. On
images over 1024 px on their longer side it traces exactly as Fast does: there the extra steps
gained little and cost a third more numbers in the file.</p>
<p><strong>Denoiser</strong>: <strong>Off</strong>, <strong>Auto</strong> or <strong>On</strong>. The denoiser is a trained model that repairs JPEG, WebP
and screenshot damage at the image's own size before tracing, so the colours are the ones the
artwork was drawn with rather than the ones the compression left.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Off</strong> (the default) traces the pixels as they are. On a clean PNG the denoiser costs a little
colour accuracy, which is why it is off.</li>
<li><strong>Auto</strong> traces, measures the fit, and cleans only if the trace disagrees with the image where it
claims to be flat.</li>
<li><strong>On</strong> always cleans first.</li>
</ul>
<p>It adds about 0.6 s to each full trace; drafts skip it. It is a one-time download of about 80 MB
(see <a href="settings.html#denoiser">the denoiser</a>). If you choose Auto or On before downloading it, the
trace carries on without it and <strong>Download it</strong> appears in its place. A build without the denoiser
(the Intel macOS build) shows <em>not in this build</em>.</p>
<p><strong>Editable</strong>: a switch for <strong>Editable structure</strong>. After fitting, it spends parameters on structure
an artist can edit: joins that are smooth, handles that lie on an axis and have equal lengths, nodes
lined up with each other, and shapes that are symmetric locked into exact mirrors. The outline stays
within the same tolerance; the <a href="result.html#editability">Editability card</a> shows what it changed, and
the quality report shows its price (about 0.04 dE00 on icons).</p>
<h3 id="which-controls-each-engine-reads">Which controls each engine reads</h3>
<p>Fast skips the stages several controls steer, so with Fast selected the Tune tab lists only the
controls that change a Fast trace, and a line at the top says how many more are for Quality.
Balanced runs the Fast engine and reads exactly the controls Fast reads: its edge placement stops
after a fixed number of steps, so <strong>Time limit</strong> does not apply to it either. The
hidden ones keep their values: switch back to Quality and they are where you left them. The
<em>changed</em> counts and each group's <strong>Reset</strong> count and reset only the controls on show; choosing a
preset still sets every control. The <a href="getting-started.html#the-custom-wizard">Custom wizard</a> leaves
the same controls out.</p>
<p>Only Quality reads <strong>Precision</strong>, <strong>Time limit</strong>, <strong>Match repeated shapes</strong>, <strong>Match threshold</strong>,
<strong>Fewer paths</strong>, <strong>Repair crossing rings</strong>, <strong>Curve cost</strong> and <strong>Smooth-join angle</strong>. Every other
control changes the trace in both engines, though some only in company: <strong>Holes as cutouts</strong>
only with Trace transparency off, and <strong>Flat fills</strong> in Fast only where the image has a smooth
colour ramp. This was measured, not assumed: each control was moved on a range of images in both
engines, and a control counts as read by an engine if any of those moves changed the SVG it
wrote.</p>
<p><strong>Two tones by lightness</strong> and <strong>Line art</strong> trace the same way in either engine, with the fitter Quality
uses, so while either is on, Fast shows the same controls as Quality. (Line art that declines, on
a drawing that is not line art, leaves the trace to Fast, and those extra controls then do
nothing.)</p>
<h2 id="presets">Presets</h2>
<p>A preset is a handful of settings chosen together. The tray shows the ten built-ins; the line
under it describes the one selected.</p>
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Preset</th>
<th>For</th>
<th>What it changes from Logo</th>
<th>Shortcut</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><strong>Logo</strong></td>
<td>The default</td>
<td>Nothing</td>
<td><kbd>Ctrl</kbd>+<kbd>1</kbd></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>Icon</strong></td>
<td>Small flat marks</td>
<td>Speckle floor 1 px², Max colours 16</td>
<td><kbd>Ctrl</kbd>+<kbd>2</kbd></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>Fine detail</strong></td>
<td>Filigree, crests, emoji</td>
<td>Precision 0.05 px</td>
<td><kbd>Ctrl</kbd>+<kbd>3</kbd></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>Fewer paths</strong></td>
<td>The smallest file</td>
<td>Fewer paths on, Colour merging doubled (0.07)</td>
<td><kbd>Ctrl</kbd>+<kbd>4</kbd></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>Photo or scan</strong></td>
<td>Photographed or screenshotted marks</td>
<td>Denoiser Auto</td>
<td><kbd>Ctrl</kbd>+<kbd>5</kbd></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>One-colour logo</strong></td>
<td>Black artwork on white</td>
<td>One colour on</td>
<td><kbd>Ctrl</kbd>+<kbd>6</kbd></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>Black, no background</strong></td>
<td>Black artwork, transparent</td>
<td>One colour and Transparent background on</td>
<td><kbd>Ctrl</kbd>+<kbd>7</kbd></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>Two-tone scan</strong></td>
<td>Stamps, signatures, by lightness</td>
<td>Two tones by lightness on</td>
<td><kbd>Ctrl</kbd>+<kbd>8</kbd></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>Line art</strong></td>
<td>Uniform-stroke drawings</td>
<td>Line art on</td>
<td><kbd>Ctrl</kbd>+<kbd>9</kbd></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>Editable</strong></td>
<td>Tidy nodes for an artist to edit</td>
<td>Editable structure on</td>
<td><kbd>Ctrl</kbd>+<kbd>0</kbd></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>On a Mac the shortcuts use <kbd>⌘</kbd>. Choosing a preset sets <em>every</em> control to that preset's
values, so anything you had moved goes back. Moving a control after choosing a preset keeps the
preset selected and counts the control as changed; <strong>Reset <em>N</em> changed</strong> puts them back.</p>
<p><strong>Photo or scan</strong> needs the denoiser to do what it says. Without it the trace still runs, and the
stage says the denoiser is missing and offers the download.</p>
<h3 id="saving-your-own">Saving your own</h3>
<p><strong>Save as preset</strong> stores all twenty-three controls exactly as they stand, under a name you give
(up to 40 characters). It appears in the tray after the built-ins; the <strong>×</strong> on its chip forgets
it. You can keep up to twelve. A saved preset is a complete snapshot rather than a list of
differences, so it does not change if a future version changes the defaults.</p>
<p>Colour groups are never saved in a preset: they name colours of one image.</p>
<h2 id="detail">Detail</h2>
<p><strong>Precision</strong> (px, 0.02 to 0.5, default 0.1). How much a coordinate has to earn its place.
Smaller values follow the edge more closely and spend more coordinates doing it; larger values give
a lighter file that follows less closely. It does not change how many decimals are written
(always two).
<em>Change it when</em> a crest or fine lettering loses detail (lower it), or when a simple mark has more
nodes than it needs (raise it).</p>
<p><strong>Speckle floor</strong> (px², 0 to 64, default 2). Features smaller than this area are dropped.
<em>Raise it</em> to drop scanner dust and JPEG specks; <em>lower it</em> to keep tiny serifs, dots and
one-pixel details.</p>
<p><strong>Trace size</strong> (px, 256 to 4096, default 2048). An image larger than this on its longer side is
traced at this size, and the SVG is still written at the image's full size. Smaller images are
traced at their own size. Tracing time grows with the number of pixels.
<em>Raise it</em> when a large image has small details that come back missing; <em>lower it</em> when a trace is
slow or runs out of memory.</p>
<p><strong>Time limit</strong> (s, 0 to 60, default 0: none). A budget for the trace. Two expensive steps stop
early to meet it (merging gradient bands stops at 60% of it, the boundary solve gets 25%); the
result is still a correct trace, with more fills or a less polished outline. With a time limit the
output depends on how fast and how busy the computer is, so the same image can trace differently
twice. Leave it at 0 unless a batch of very large images must finish in time.</p>
<h2 id="colour">Colour</h2>
<p><strong>Max colours</strong> (2 to 2048, default 64). The largest palette the trace may use. The transparent
background does not count towards it.
<em>Lower it</em> to force a small palette on a scan with many near-identical shades. To merge particular
colours, <a href="palette.html#colour-groups">colour groups</a> are more precise.</p>
<p><strong>Colour merging</strong> (0 to 0.2, default 0.035). How close two colours must be (a distance in the
OKLab colour space) to be treated as one ink.
<em>Raise it</em> when shades that should be one colour come back as several; <em>lower it</em> when two
genuinely different colours were merged.</p>
<p><strong>Flat fills instead of gradients</strong> (off). Skips gradient fitting and fills every region with one
colour. For flat artwork, or when the SVG must not contain gradients.</p>
<p><strong>One colour (black)</strong> (off). Every shape that is not the background is drawn black, light
colours included, on a white background; with <strong>Transparent background</strong> on, on nothing, so the
artwork can be placed on any design. Lettering on a coloured panel is cut out of a black panel.
For logos and lettering. The presets <em>One-colour logo</em> and <em>Black, no background</em> turn it on.</p>
<p><strong>Two tones by lightness</strong> (off). Dark becomes black and light becomes white, like a photocopy,
so light colours drop out: the Potrace-style mode, for stamps, signatures and scans of print (the
<em>Two-tone scan</em> preset). It wins over One colour when both are on.</p>
<p><strong>Trace transparency</strong> (on). Transparency is traced as it is: holes stay holes, every ink carries
its own opacity, and soft shadows, glows and feathered edges come back as translucent fills. Turned
off, the image is laid on a solid background first and traced as solid colours, which fills holes
and gaps with that background. It changes nothing for an image without transparency.</p>
<p>The denoiser's setting (<em>Clean up damage</em>) belongs to this group but is shown at the top of the
rail.</p>
<h2 id="shape">Shape</h2>
<p><strong>Match repeated shapes</strong> (on). Marks that repeat across the drawing (a row of stars, the dots of
several i's) are redrawn from one shared shape, which saves coordinates. A mark takes the shared
shape only where that stays within 0.1 px of its own traced outline and actually costs less; a
fitted circle or rounded rectangle, and a shape another shape is drawn against, are never moved.</p>
<p><strong>Match threshold</strong> (0.5 to 1, default 0.92). How alike two marks' outlines must be to count as
the same shape. Towards 1, only near-identical marks are matched.</p>
<p><strong>Fewer paths</strong> (off). Scales the fit tolerances with the image, so a large, simple drawing costs
what a small one would. It trades accuracy for a smaller file: small squares can come back as
circles, and thin rings broken. Used by the <em>Fewer paths</em> preset.</p>
<p><strong>Line art</strong> (off). Writes line art as strokes, one path and one width each, instead of as the
filled outlines around the lines, so the lines can be re-weighted in an editor. On anything that is
not uniform-stroke line art it does nothing, and the Result tab says so.</p>
<p><strong>Repair crossing rings</strong> (on). A pass after fitting that fixes outlines that cross themselves.
Turned off, each outline is exactly as the fitter wrote it, crossings included. Leave it on.</p>
<p><strong>Curve cost</strong> (parameters, 2 to 12, default 6). What one Bézier curve costs the fit; a straight
line costs 2. At 6, a chain of short lines is often cheaper than the one curve that describes it,
which is why traces come out less curvy than hand-drawn artwork.
<em>Lower it</em> for more curves and fewer lines, at some cost in file size.</p>
<p><strong>Smooth-join angle</strong> (degrees, 1 to 60, default 10). The turn at a join that counts as a full
corner; gentler bends are charged less.
<em>Raise it</em> to let gentle bends stay smooth, which tends to give more curves and a little more
detail in a slightly larger file.</p>
<p><em>Editable structure</em> belongs to this group but is shown at the top of the rail, as <strong>Editable</strong>.</p>
<h2 id="output">Output</h2>
<p>These rewrite the drawing rather than change the trace.</p>
<p><strong>Minify</strong> (off). No ids or groups, no trailing zeros: the same geometry in a file typically about
a tenth smaller. Export always writes a minified copy as well, so you only need this if you copy or
batch the SVG.</p>
<p><strong>Transparent background</strong> (off). The shape that covers the whole canvas is not painted, so the
artwork sits on transparency. Use it for a logo that will go on coloured backgrounds.</p>
<p><strong>Margin</strong> (0 to 0.25, default 0). Transparent space around the drawing, as a fraction of its
longer side: 0.05 adds 5% on every side. The canvas grows; the drawing does not move.</p>
<p><strong>Holes as cutouts</strong> (off). Carries the image's transparency into the SVG as holes: a region the
image drew transparent becomes a hole, one drawn at a single opacity keeps that opacity, and white
artwork on a transparent background survives. It changes nothing for an image without
transparency. With <strong>Trace transparency</strong> on (the default) holes already stay holes, so this
matters mainly when that is off.</p>
<h2 id="the-same-controls-on-the-command-line">The same controls on the command line</h2>
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Studio</th>
<th><code>inkvec</code> option</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Precision</td>
<td><code>--precision</code></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Speckle floor</td>
<td><code>--min-area</code></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Trace size</td>
<td><code>--max-dim</code></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Time limit</td>
<td><code>--time-budget</code></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Max colours</td>
<td><code>--colors</code></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Colour merging</td>
<td><code>--merge</code></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Flat fills instead of gradients</td>
<td><code>--no-gradients</code></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>One colour (black)</td>
<td><code>--monochrome</code></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Two tones by lightness</td>
<td><code>--bilevel</code></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Trace transparency</td>
<td>on by default; <code>--no-native-alpha</code> turns it off</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Denoiser (Clean up damage)</td>
<td><code>--restore off</code>, <code>--restore auto</code>, <code>--restore on</code></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Match repeated shapes</td>
<td>on by default; <code>--no-harmonize</code> turns it off</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Match threshold</td>
<td><code>--harmonize-threshold</code></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Fewer paths</td>
<td><code>--content-units</code></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Line art</td>
<td><code>--strokes</code></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Repair crossing rings</td>
<td>on by default; <code>--no-repair</code> turns it off</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Editable structure</td>
<td><code>--editability</code></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Curve cost</td>
<td><code>--bezier-cost</code></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Smooth-join angle</td>
<td><code>--corner-angle</code></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Minify</td>
<td><code>--minify</code></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Transparent background</td>
<td><code>--no-background</code></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Margin</td>
<td><code>--margin</code></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Holes as cutouts</td>
<td><code>--cutout</code></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Colour groups (<a href="palette.html#colour-groups">palette</a>)</td>
<td><code>--merge-colors</code></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><code>inkvec --help</code> lists them all with their exact spelling.</p><nav class="pagenav" aria-label="Previous and next page"><a class="prev" href="result.html"><span class="dir">Previous</span><span class="lbl">Result</span></a><a class="next" href="palette.html"><span class="dir">Next</span><span class="lbl">Palette and colour groups</span></a></nav></article></main>
<aside class="rail" aria-label="On this page"><h2 class="railh">On this page</h2><ul><li class="l2"><a href="#how-the-controls-work">How the controls work</a></li><li class="l2"><a href="#the-engine-the-denoiser-and-editable">The engine, the denoiser and Editable</a><ul><li class="l3"><a href="#which-controls-each-engine-reads">Which controls each engine reads</a></li></ul></li><li class="l2"><a href="#presets">Presets</a><ul><li class="l3"><a href="#saving-your-own">Saving your own</a></li></ul></li><li class="l2"><a href="#detail">Detail</a></li><li class="l2"><a href="#colour">Colour</a></li><li class="l2"><a href="#shape">Shape</a></li><li class="l2"><a href="#output">Output</a></li><li class="l2"><a href="#the-same-controls-on-the-command-line">The same controls on the command line</a></li></ul></aside>
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