Step 1

First you need a drawing scanned into your computer. I made this arrow with a felt-tip pen. It’s pretty simple.

Step 2

Import your drawing into Inkscape (File > Import).

Step 3

Now let’s trace the bitmap (Paths > Trace Bitmap). In the popup dialog set the scans to 2.

Step 4

Select OK and close the dialog. The new image should be automatclly selected, and move it out of the way.

Step 5

Delete the first image and scale up your new images.

Looks a lot better doesn’t it?

Step 6

Now we want to save it in high resolution. Go to File > Export Bitmap and change the dpi to 300 and when you choose the name, be sure to add .png at the end.

Wonderful! Looks a lot better then your drawing. Here’s the drawing:

And here’s our vector image. It’s scaled down so you can’t see the full detail, but if you did this tutorial you can see it for yourself.