Skip to main content
J
Jo5E6E
Participant
January 19, 2021
Answered

Really big file size in Illustrator

  • January 19, 2021
  • 1 reply
  • 2450 views

Working on a portfolio that uses roughly 20 JPEGs.

 

Cropped, resized and compressed them all using Ps to bring down the file sizes to between 60KB and 400KB. The folder that contains ALL images used in the Illustrator project is 3.5MB (illustrator sizes.png, attached).

The Illustrator file is 66MB (bottom file of same image).

 

How is that even possible? It's almost 20 times larger than the total file size of all the images.

 

 

Other than those images, the project contains flat coloured blocks, and a small amount of text (illustrator screen.png, attached, to give you an idea), across 11 artboards of 1920x1080.

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Ton Frederiks

"...you are losing details that are thrown away during compression." I wanted to throw those details away. I understood and accepted that those were the terms of compressing the image.

I did not know that once compressed an image could say it was one file size and turn out to be another (which is pretty irritating to be honest).

 

Anyway, would saving the images as PNG instead of JPEG sidestep the whole compresson issue?

The final PDF will only be viewed on screens.


The amount of pixels stays the same when compressed and when decompressed you get them back. Saving as PNG is not an option to compress them more than jpeg.

Just tweak the PDF compression options to reduce the filesize.

1 reply

Ton Frederiks
Community Expert
Ton FrederiksCommunity Expert
Community Expert
January 19, 2021

Illustrator decompresses the images.

When linked, they stay the same (compressed) size.

When embedded they become uncompressed part of the Illustrator file.

When the Illustrator file is saved with the Create PDF Compatible File option checked, the images will be embedded in the PDF part (even when they are linked).

J
Jo5E6EAuthor
Participant
January 19, 2021

When I saved the images from Photoshop I used the JPEG Quality slider to bring the file size down from a few MBs to a couple hundred KBs.

 

I was under the impression that saving as JPEG effectively rasterizes the image. Or is this sort of compression something that can be turned on or off by the software using it?

 

I've been Placing the images in Ilustrator, and not checking the 'Link' option, so I assume they're embedded.

The idea is to save this portfolio as a standalone PDF when finished, to be sent as email attachment. Hence the need for a small overall file size and embedded images.

Ton Frederiks
Community Expert
Ton FrederiksCommunity Expert
Community Expert
January 19, 2021

Yes, compressed files can be decompressed, sometimes without losing quality, but in the case of jpeg with you are losing details that are thrown away during compression.

When saving as pdf (make sure to save as a copy), you can turn off Illustrator editing capabilities and control the level of compression for images.

Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices