Optimizing pdf files in photoshop cs5

hey,

For my work I have to create a number of pdf-files containing different sorts of graphics. Now the Pdf-files I received from the company are all very reasonable in size : ±200 - 600kb.
When I however want to create a pdf-file I end up with files up to 25m which obviously is something I don’t want.

Does someone know how to optimize your pdf-files or knows of a good tutorial which will teach you how? I’d be glad to hear!

A couple of things I would suggest are:

  • optimize the images first, perhaps by flattening them and maybe even using save for web if image quality is not essential
  • you can choose various file sizes when exporting to pdf. If you aren’t sending a pdf to a printer, you don’t need to save as a Print ready file. If the PDF is just for screen viewing and emailing around, you could consider saving as Smallest File Size (I haven’t got a file open to test this at the moment, so I may have the names wrong).

If the originals are primarily vector based, then outputting them from photoshop will rasterize (convert to bitmap) most of the content which makes for a much larger file. You’d be better off using illustrator for creation of pdfs as more of the content can remain as vectors.