Printing for billboard 8’ X 4’

[John234994120unq]

I am working with a sign printer for an 8 foot wide, 4 foot tall billboard that includes text, a pattern, and a photograph.  Initially he had trouble with pixelation so I made a photoshop file that was to scale and saved as a pdf.  Now that file is too large for him to open. 

Is there a sweet spot for me to save a PDF that can then be scaled to fit the 8x4 sign?

thank you in advance

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

You can still do the artwork at a reduced scale, e.g. 1/2 size or 1/4 size.

Personally, I build my large-scale billboards to 1/4 size, then export my PDF at 300dpi. Once the vendor scales up to size (400%), the effective resolution redcuces to 75, but this is a billboard, so even that is MORE than enough.

Since you've already built your file at size, export your PDF at 75dpi.