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Karin Livni
Inspiring
June 29, 2021
Answered

PDFs output from Bridge are very big - how can I make smaller versions?

  • June 29, 2021
  • 4 replies
  • 3975 views

Hello all

I really need help with this. My colleagues and I use Adobe Bridge to create contact sheet PDF files for client approvals. We place hires transparent PNG files, and export to PDF withh various page layouts (i.e. different numbers of images per page), depending on the client.

In the more recent versions of CC (newer that 2018), I have found that hte file size of these PDF files is usually prohibitively big (as we want to be able to emails them to clients with limited bandwidth, and also not clog up our email storage). Instead of being around 1MG in size (which is what I can produce when re-exporting the PDF from InDesign (placing the Bridge-created PDF file into InDesign and exporting a 300dpi interactive PDF), the PDFs from Bridge range between 5 and 30 MG in size.

This happens regardless of export image quality settings.

 

Optimising the files after the cae like I do in InDesign is not an option (nor is it viable for us to optimise through Acrobat DC, as this compresses image quality too much), as we have only one full license and the rest of the licenses are Photography plan (Bridge, Lightroom and PS only).

 

What else can I do to fix this problem?

I know people who use older versions of Bridge as a workaround, but we cannot installl any versions older than what is currently available for download on CC.

 

Please help!

Thank you.

 

Karin

    Correct answer Karin Livni

    I have now discovered that if I use the Preferences setting to NOT preserve transparency for the images, this makes the output file a lot smaller. Any other ideas about how I could improve on this?

    4 replies

    M
    mister_1296
    Participant
    November 26, 2024

    Hi Karin.

    I'm not sure if this will give you satisfactory results, but it's a fabulous product. (I'm not connected to it in any way except by being a fan!)

    Free PDF Compressor: https://www.freepdfcompressor.com .

    HTH.

    Stephen Swain
    Stephen Swain
    Known Participant
    October 3, 2024

    The Preferences setting to NOT preserve transparency for the image does not make any difference whatsoever for me.

      K
      Karin LivniAuthor
      Inspiring
      October 4, 2024

      [Hi @Karin Livni] , you left a lot of personal contact information in your post; I've just deleted it. Sadly, not everyone who goes into these forums has everyone's best interest at heart. I have no way to know how long your post was here before I deleted your personal contact information, so there's no way to know how many bad actors saw it before I removed them. For your security, do not leave personal contact information in public forums.]

       

      It's also related to the version of Bridge that you are using. The more recent versions are making bigger PDFs again. I haven't had time to look into an alternative, am just continuing to use the older version (14.1.1.274 works well)

      Karin Livni
      Image QA Manager

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      Stephen Swain
      Stephen Swain
      Known Participant
      October 4, 2024

      Yes, thank you Karin, I rolled bac to V12 and a 136mb PDF is now created at 29mb..,,

       

      gary_sc
      Community Expert
      gary_scCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      June 29, 2021

      Good catch on transparency. 

       

      Do you have Photoshop? 

       

      If the images are of normal photography kinds of things (faces, houses, parties, things like that), than PNGs will be larger than if save as a JPG. 

       

      Also just be aware that images just have a lot of data and the more data the more storage space they will take up. However, if the images are of text, shapes, and things like that, than PNG format is better because the file size will be smaller and there will be no image degredation.

       

      Probably what you need to do is to take one of these images, open it up in PS, and press Command/Control-Option/Alt-Shift-s (three fingers from one hand, one from the other). In the Save for Web... interface you can see the image on the left and on the right you'll see a dropdown (#1) to select the desiered format. If you chose JPG, to the right of that you'll see (#2) the option to set the amount of compression — do not set this any lower than 70. The greater the compression the more distruction to the image. [Note, after I took this screenshot I noticed that it was set to 60, I had a specific reason to set this there, so do as I say, not as I do! ;>)]

       

      You'll notice in this image I'm showing "2-up" this lets me see the original and the result of the selected format. At #3 you can see the original file size and at #4 you can see the results of the image format. In this case there is a 10x decrease in file size. 

       

      K
      Karin LivniAuthor
      Inspiring
      July 20, 2021

      Hi Gary. Thanks for your response.

      The issue here is that I do not want to have to make changes to the files before placing them in Bridge. The PNG files are the correct size and format for our use, it's just when making a contact sheet style PDF that the files were too large. But discovering the transparency issue has fixed my problem.

       

      I now have another issue though, and can't figure out where I am going wrong.

      There are 4 or 5 of us needing to make files in this way, all on different machines, often running different versions of the software. We have a standard colour setting for RGB and CMYK which we use in PS, and this setting should be available in bridge to choose so that we can synchronise the apps. On some of our machines it is available and on others not (even though they are they same version of the programs). More signficantly, even when using the same profile, we are getting different result when exporting to PDF. I don't know why.

       

      The working profile we use is sRGB (because the files will eventually be used online), but the PNGs don't embed this profile (they seem to be able to embed Adobe 1998 only). So we save them without a profile embedded and then use the same profile in Bridge, which, if I understand it correctly, will display the images in the PDF with this profile applied. But for some reason, one of our machines is creating PDF files with much brighter images than the others (even though the same settings are used).

       

      Any bright ideas?

      Thanks

      Karin

       

        K
        Karin LivniAuthorCorrect answer
        Inspiring
        June 29, 2021

        I have now discovered that if I use the Preferences setting to NOT preserve transparency for the images, this makes the output file a lot smaller. Any other ideas about how I could improve on this?

          Chris Lo Bue Photography
          Chris Lo Bue Photography
          Participant
          April 21, 2023

          This trick Helped almost cut my PDF files in 1/2!

          Really appreciate the insight.

           

          Thanks,
          Chris Lo Bue Photography

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