The less you have nodes the easier it is to get nice curves. The newly created object will overlap the old one, so just drag one of them to the side to gaze upon the result.

Have your bitmap selected, choose your tracing metod and press OK. Use Path > Object to Path.Ī practical path editing hint: more likely remove nodes than insert them more. Under Path, select Trace Bitmap (3 from the top). Preset shapes must generally be converted to paths for easy node editing because in Inkscape they are not Bezier curves. In addition preset shapes often are already symmetric. There's no need to use the pen for everything. You can combine them with path operations and edit them with the node tool. Use preset shapes such as circles, rounded polygons etc where possible.

If you can assume the shape is LR-symmetric, you can well draw only half of it and combine the halvesīe informed that practicing a little with the Pen and the Node tool will pay the used time back generously, probably with 10000% interest. It's up to you to decide which parts should be separate. If you redraw it Use different colors for different parts. This preparation must be done in a photo editor. You have no control how the shape is divided to parts except by tracing the shape several times in differently partially erased or recolored versions. In addition the number of generated nodes is often frightening high as you have seen. Inkscape traces even thinnest lines as filled areas, never as simple strokes. It's useless to fight with Inkscape's automatic tracing if you expect easily editable result. That means redraw it, but have the original as locked in the bottom for reference

Inkscape trace bitmap selection