Troubleshooting and questions

Installing and starting

Windows says "Windows protected your PC". The installer is not code-signed. Choose More info, then Run anyway. Check the file's SHA-256 against the release notes first if you want to be sure it is the published one. See Install.

macOS says the app cannot be opened. Also unsigned. Control-click the app in Applications, choose Open, then Open again. If that is refused too, run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/Inkvec Studio.app".

The Linux package will not install or start. The app needs glibc 2.38, libstdc++ 13 and WebKitGTK 4.1 (Ubuntu 23.10, Debian 13, Fedora 39 or newer), because the denoiser's runtime needs them. On an older system use the command-line archive, which runs on glibc 2.17 and later (without the denoiser).

The Windows app will not start. It needs Microsoft WebView2, which the .exe installer fetches if it is missing. After installing from the .msi, or on a machine where WebView2 was removed, install the WebView2 Runtime from Microsoft and start the app again.

Transparency and backgrounds

My logo has a transparent background, and the SVG has a white (or black) box behind it. Check that Trace transparency (Tune, Colour) is on; it is by default. If the image itself has a solid background, turn on Transparent background (Tune, Output): the shape that covers the whole canvas is then not painted.

The holes in letters (the middle of an O) are filled in. Transparency was flattened: turn Trace transparency on. If you must trace with it off, Holes as cutouts puts the holes back.

A white logo on a transparent background disappeared. It is there; a white drawing on a white page is invisible. With Trace transparency on, it is traced as white shapes on a clear ground. Look at it with the Minify tab's dark Backdrop, or in the viewer (the stage is dark).

Soft shadows or glows came back as flat shapes. With Trace transparency on they come back as translucent fills. Where a shade is a continuous blur, the Result tab says that part is a ramp SVG cannot hold exactly.

Colours

Two shades of what should be one colour. A flat colour measured twice, usually from anti-aliasing or compression. Accept the suggested colour groups, or raise Colour merging a little.

More colours than the design has. Set Colours in the palette to the number the design has and accept the suggestions, or lower Max colours.

A small detail took the colour of its neighbour. Too few colours, or merging too strong. Raise Max colours or lower Colour merging, and undo any group that swallowed it.

Does the transparent background use up one of the colours? No. With Trace transparency on (the default), the clear ground is not counted towards Max colours.

The colours are slightly off from the brand's. The colours written are the ones measured in the image, and a JPEG or a screenshot changes them. Use the denoiser, and paste the brand palette to snap each ink to its real value.

A snapped colour went back to the measured one. A snap is dropped when its ink is no longer in the drawing, for example after a colour group merged it into another ink. Snap the merged ink, or give the group a Custom… colour.

The denoiser

The download fails. The app downloads from huggingface.co. A proxy or firewall that blocks it stops the download; the message says why. You can also fetch the model yourself, from https://huggingface.co/Logolabs/inkvec-denoiser-001/resolve/main/restorer.onnx, and put it where the app keeps it (see Settings). The app checks it against the published SHA-256 and only treats it as installed if it matches.

The download finished but the denoiser says "Not installed". The file did not match the published checksum (an interrupted or altered download) and was not kept. Download it again.

"Not in this build". The Intel macOS build has no denoiser, because its runtime has no package for that platform.

The denoiser is on and the draft looks no different. Drafts skip the denoiser. It runs on the full trace, a moment after you stop moving controls.

Speed and size

A trace is slow. Tracing time grows with the pixel count. Lower Trace size (Tune, Detail); for most logos 1024 or 2048 px loses nothing visible. Threads in Settings should be the full count unless you need the computer for something else.

"The trace would run out of memory". Press Retry at with the size it suggests.

The SVG is huge. Try the Fewer paths preset, raise Precision, accept the colour-group suggestions, and export the minified copy. A photograph will never make a small SVG; see Limitations.

The trace of an enlarged image is blocky or stepped. An image that was enlarged from a smaller one carries the smaller one's pixel steps, and the trace follows them faithfully. Trace the original, smaller file instead.

The result

The lettering is outlines, not text. Tracing recovers shapes, not the typeface; the Result tab says so. Re-set the words in a vector editor if they must stay editable.

Lines came back as thin filled shapes. Try the Line art preset. It only works for lines of one even width; brush and calligraphic strokes stay as outlines.

The draft and the final look different. A draft is traced small (512 px) for speed. Wait for the chip to say final before judging or copying.

The favicon has space above and below the logo. Favicons are square; a wide drawing is centred in them on a transparent background rather than stretched. Trace a square crop of the mark for a favicon that fills its square.

Integrations

"Vectorize with Inkvec" is not in the right-click menu. Add it first in Settings, Advanced. On Windows 11 it is under Show more options. On macOS use Open With, where the app is already listed.

inkvec is not found after "Add inkvec to PATH". Open a new terminal. On macOS, add ~/.local/bin to your PATH.

A cutter imports the file at the wrong size. In Fabricate, set The files state their size in to the pixel rate the program uses (Cricut and Silhouette: 72/in), and cut the size-check square to confirm. See Fabricate.

Help and settings

Help says the guide is not bundled with this build. A development or browser build may not include it. Open the online guide shows the same pages on logolabs.github.io/inkvec.

How do I start over? Settings, Advanced, Reset settings. It resets your preferences and clears the recent files, and keeps your saved presets, your files and the denoiser.

Studio Lite

Where did my file go? Studio Lite downloads what it saves, into your browser's downloads folder.

Where are Batch, the command line and the right-click menu? They need the desktop app. See Inkvec Studio and Inkvec Studio Lite.

Reporting a problem

Report bugs on GitHub. Include the app version (from About), your operating system, and, if you can share it, the image. Security problems go through the security policy instead.