When opening PDFs in Photoshop the dialogue box's page options always defaults to Crop to Bounding Box. I want it to default to Media Box. How do I set the default? I'm sure there's a setting somewhere if one drills down a bit.
I don't know how to set the default to Media Box, but you can always drop your PDFs into a folder and setup and action to open the PDFs with the option you want (Crop, Size, Color space, etc...)
bigger question is why are you rasterizing pdf files in photoshop?
Good question. Our workflow is pure pdf but our customer services department uses a MIS system which requires images in jpeg format. It's enough to make one weep.
Open your PDF files with Acrobat Pro. 9, you can then Export as a .jpg (File/Export/Image/JPEG) and choose settings such as compression and resolution etc.. You could even create a batch command and attach it to a folder. Good luck. - peter
PS - I only have Acrobat 9 (don't keep older versions around) so I am not sure how long that function has been around.
Last edited by eskopdl; 10-15-2010 at 09:33 AM.
"you never know how the past is going to turn out"
Depending on the frequency and volume of PDF's that you need to do this with you can use callas pdfToolbox Server to "rip" the PDF into a JPEG, TIFF or PNG file. For lighter duty work you could probably set up a batch sequence in Acrobat Pro to export the PDF (as someone else had suggested) or a PhotoShop batch (again as someone else suggested).
But then again, depending on what you are doing and how you are doing it with your MIS then pdfToolbox should be easy to put in there and eliminate the problem.
bigger question is why are you rasterizing pdf files in photoshop?
There can be legitimate reasons for doing this, most often for client email approvals for artwork or design.
Some clients have aggressive spam or virus filters on their email and PDF files are rejected out of hand or go to a quarantine folder, where as JPEG/GIF files make it through. PDF file MIME type appears to be "application" which is a hurdle.
Some clients are not "sophisticated" enough to have Acrobat Reader, or their IT Departments do not let them install it etc.
For some clients, we do not wish to send data that they can use at another printer without first paying us for our work (yes, we can use security measures in Acrobat and or watermark and or downsample images etc...however this can be a lot more time or work than quickly rasterizing the whole file).
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There are problems with using the Acrobat export image option, it does not anti-alias and text and vectors often look like crap. This means that one then has to export to a higher resolution and resample down to fudge "anti-aliasing". Additionally, one can't choose what is exported from Acrobat (bounding box, trim box, media box etc).
The problems with opening vector/raster PDF files into Photoshop for creating raster email "visual drafts" are that Photoshop can often crash if the parser does not like something in the PDF.
Stephen Marsh
Last edited by Stephen Marsh; 10-31-2010 at 06:51 PM.
Some clients have aggressive spam or virus filters on their email and PDF files are rejected out of hand or go to a quarantine folder, where as JPEG/GIF files make it through. PDF file MIME type appears to be "application" which is a hurdle.
Some clients are not "sophisticated" enough to have Acrobat Reader, or their IT Departments do not let them install it etc.
Do you really have clients that meet such criteria or are you speculating? I would LOVE to speak to a specific person/IT dept/etc. that has adopted either (or both) of these two scenarios.
There are problems with using the Acrobat export image option, it does not anti-alias and text and vectors often look like crap. This means that one then has to export to a higher resolution and resample down to fudge "anti-aliasing".
Export image uses the same anti-aliasing settings that are used for rendering to screen. What version of Acrobat are you using?
Additionally, one can't choose what is exported from Acrobat (bounding box, trim box, media box etc).
We export what you see on screen - that's the Crop box. I could see the use case for TrimBox, but not the others. Can you expound on why the other options would make sense from Acrobat?
The problems with opening vector/raster PDF files into Photoshop for creating raster email "visual drafts" are that Photoshop can often crash if the parser does not like something in the PDF.
Photoshop uses the same PDF library that Acrobat does to read/write documents. So any PDF that opens up in Acrobat will open up in the "matching" version of Photoshop.
Leonardr, thank you for the reply. I will have to reply to your post in chunks...
Originally Posted by leonardr
Photoshop uses the same PDF library that Acrobat does to read/write documents. So any PDF that opens up in Acrobat will open up in the "matching" version of Photoshop.
OK, be that as it may, PDF files created by myself in InDesign CS3, or PDF supplied by third parties can crash Photoshop CS3 (Tiger, PPC, G5). Not every time, but it happens often enough. Sometimes I can attempt to open the same PDF up in Photoshop, five times in a row, the first four times it crashes and then the last time it opens. This appears to be random. Another time the PDF will open up first time without crashing Photoshop.
EDIT: A sample crash log is attached...
Photoshop has then usually lost/reset it's preferences after such a crash - however this is a separate issue!
Originally Posted by leonardr
Export image uses the same anti-aliasing settings that are used for rendering to screen. What version of Acrobat are you using?
I am running Acrobat 9 Pro (9.4.0) on Tiger on a PPC G5.
Sample images attached below:
Acro9-JPEG-Export.psd = Result opened in Photoshop (screen cap of PDF export options superimposed for reference).
Photoshop-Rasterize-PDF.psd = PDF rasterized directly in Photoshop, note the edges of vector elements being smoothly anti-aliased when compared to the PDF export. This is not due to JPEG, the same result is found on TIFF files.
Best,
Stephen Marsh
Last edited by Stephen Marsh; 11-01-2010 at 07:43 PM.
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Opening PDFs in Photoshop
Originally Posted by couriergraphics
