PDF Images

What it's for

Get the pictures out of a PDF at the size and quality they were put in, rather than taking screenshots; make a PDF of scans or photos small enough to email; or put a set of pictures, such as photos of a signed form or scanned pages, into one PDF.

For example, when a brochure PDF has the only copy of a product photo, open it here and save the photo as the original JPEG, at full resolution.

How to use it

Pictures out of a PDF: choose a PDF (or drop it on that box). Every picture is shown with the pages it’s on, its size in pixels, its format and file size, and a Save button; Save them all (ZIP) saves them together. JPEGs (and JPEG 2000) are saved exactly as they’re stored, so nothing is lost; other pictures are saved as PNG, with their transparency. Leave out pictures under 16 pixels skips tiny decorations; it’s remembered.

Pages as pictures: choose a PDF and Make the pictures: each page is drawn at the Resolution chosen (150 dpi for a screen, 300 for printing) and shown with a Save button, and Save them all (ZIP) saves them together. PNG keeps text sharp; JPEG is smaller for pages of photos. Both settings are remembered.

Make a PDF smaller: choose a PDF and Make it smaller. Each picture larger than Pictures at most is scaled down to that many pixels on its longest side and saved again as a JPEG at the Quality chosen; a picture is changed only when that saves at least a tenth of its size. The copy is saved as name-smaller.pdf, and the message gives the size before and after. 1600 pixels is sharp on screen and fine for printing most documents.

Pictures into a PDF: choose the pictures (or drop them on that box) and they join the list, one page each, in file name order (so scan 2 comes before scan 10); choose more later to add them to the end. Use ↑ and ↓ to change the order and ✕ to take a page out. Take photos starts the camera: choose Take a photo for each page, then Stop the camera. The camera’s picture stays on this page and is never sent anywhere; the camera is also stopped if you leave the page. Clean up (on each page, and set for new pages by the box under the list) turns a picture into a document scan: grey, with its contrast stretched so the paper is white and the writing dark, and the right way up by its orientation setting (up to 3000 pixels on its longest side). Page size is each picture’s own size, or A4, US Letter or A5, turned to suit each picture, with the picture fitted inside the Margin. JPEGs and PNGs go in as they are; other formats, and phone photos that are stored on their side, are converted first so they appear the right way up. Page size, margin and the clean-up box are remembered.

Example

Choose three photos named page 1.jpg, page 2.jpg and page 10.jpg, set Page size to A4 and Margin to 10, and choose Make the PDF: you get pictures.pdf with three A4 pages in that order, each photo centred with a 10 mm margin. Tick Clean up on a page first and that page is saved in grey.

Good to know

Only pictures are extracted: text, and drawings made of lines and shapes (charts, logos as vectors), aren’t pictures. Pictures stored with JBIG2 or CCITT compression (common in black and white scans), LZW or in Lab colour can’t be read in a browser and are counted but not shown, and aren’t made smaller either; neither are CMYK JPEGs or masks. Making a PDF smaller only helps when its size comes from pictures: text, fonts and drawings are copied as they are, and a form’s fields, links and bookmarks are kept. A digital signature on the PDF no longer checks out afterwards, since the file has changed. Pictures lose detail each time they’re shrunk, so keep the original. CMYK pictures are converted to RGB simply, so their colours may shift. A picture used on several pages is saved once. Encrypted PDFs can’t be read. Clean-up doesn’t straighten a page photographed at an angle or remove shadows, and the camera is whichever the browser picks (a phone’s rear camera when it has one). Photos and pictures are kept only in the page until you leave it. Nothing is uploaded.