An image was placed in Illustrator, how do I pull it out in it's native resolution?

[ChadThompson]

I'm familiar with all of the export options, I think. But as I understand it, my only options are to choose a resolution that I want. That's great but I'm trying to get the cleanest version of the photo as possible, and I want to avoid Illustrator scaling it up or doing any unnecessary compression.

Thanks for sharing any tricks!

[Ton Frederiks]

Unembed? Using the Control or Properties panel.

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

Note, that when you place and Embed an image in Illustrator (say a JPG), it will store the image data uncompressed, so your options when Unembedding are either PSD or TIF in its original resolution when embedded. This in itself is good, however, any embedded image takes on the Color Space set for your document (either CMYK or RGB) using the corresponding profile in your Color Settings.

e.g. if you embed an RGB image with AdobeRGB profile into a CMYK document, the image data will be converted to the CMYK profile set in your Color settings (e.g. SWOP Web Coated), and this is what will be exported when you Unembed. You will not get back the original wider gamut Adobe RGB image as it no longer exists.

(This is another reason I never recommend embedding images, especially color-managed ones.)