Designers: what's your preferred way to create visual decks of photographs to share via email.

[El_Jeffe]

Photographer here. I need to create PDF's of photographs to share with art directors, creative directors, designers etc. I want to create a template that has my logo and then maybe a short 1-2 lines of text describing the images, but then a simple layout of images so that potential clients can see my photographs. I'll be swapping images in and out as I want to make the PDFs specific for that Creative's client base, so the ability to have an image box that the photograph drops into and is already formatted is very important. I've been using Keynote but it's not a great solution, especially when I want to keep the total file size down so it can be emailed to, essentially, sales prospects who don't want their emails being clogged up by some photographer!

I have the full Adobe suite, so it could be InDesign, Illustrator, Acrobat, or even Adobe Express, but I'm open to any suggestions on what the best tool is currently. 

Thanks!

[Barb Binder]

Hi @El_Jeffe:

As a photographer, you probably know that you can share photos directly from Photoshop or Lightroom, but that's not going to let you add your logo and 1 to 2 sentences about each picture.

It sounds like InDesign is probably the best Adobe application for your situation. You can create a template with placeholder frames on the parent pages and you can drop in your pictures and your text on the body pages. You can aslo add your logo and page numbers, and any other repeating information to the parent pages so that they will immediately appear on all of the body pages.

From there, you can export to PDF.

~Barb

[El_Jeffe]

Great! 

One issue I keep hitting with Keynote is the ability to get the document size, pixel width and height of the page, at the optimum size and then fine-tune the PDF compression to keep the PDF size under that 10MB. I know I can change the page size in InDesign, but can I easily change it "on-the-fly", so the image box the photo is in also reduces in size, keeping the design (in my case really that's really just the white page space around the photo box), at the same ratio?

Many thanks! 

[BobLevine]

Why PDFs? Do you know that a benefit of your Creative Cloud subscription is an Adobe Portfolio website? 

Adobe Portfolio | Build your own personalized website

[El_Jeffe]

I have a website. I'm creating PDF's of photos that may or may not be on my website that are specific to that person's client base. I also want to customize the PDF that the recipient will see straight away (depending on their email client), not a link that they may, or more likely may not, open. I know why I want to create a PDF, that's not my question. It's what is, as of November 2023, the best tool in the Adobe universe to create a simple, quick, PDF template and have the ability to change the size so as to keep the document under 10MB, the current commonly accepted file size limit for emails. 

[BobLevine]

At 10 MB you are sacrificing quality for anything more than a few pages. I'll bow out now.

[El_Jeffe]

Agreed, but pragmatism means you have to keep it under that size and it is recognized amongst my client base that there is some quality loss. They're looking for storytelling, ability to capture emotion etc, not for a perfect version of a digital file, so that's less of an issue. They work on decks themselves all the time so they understand the constraints. That's why part of what I'm looking for is the best tool to fine-tune the PDF size.

Thanks!

[BobLevine]

Export at high quality and then fine tune it in Acrobat.

[El_Jeffe]

Awesome, thanks!

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

I'm with Bob here. A website or live portfolio repository is by far a better way to share this kind of material, since it will be fluid, flexible and reach viewers with a maximum reasonable resolution. PDFs are going to be a compromise between size and quality, and there's really not much point in putting grainy thumbnails before potential clients while still making them choke on a 10+MB attachment.

I'm also not clear on why you think a PDF will magically open for them without a click, and be superior to, clicking on a link. There's also the issue of PDF reader variations, which might muck up your document in various ways, when (these days) pretty much all browsers, including the ones built into mail apps and such, are pretty good and consistent at rendering.

TL;DR, I see no advantage to PDFs for this purpose, and some notable drawbacks. But it's your project; consider me bowed out, too. 🙂

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

DataMerge. 

[El_Jeffe]

Interesting!

I Googled both and looks like some decent info there. As my goal is to create a quite simple PDF, really just 8-16 pages at most, each page with 1, 2 or at most 4 images that can be viewed on desktop but also, ideally on a phone when the recipient opens the email with the PDF, do you have a suggestion for which of those two tools would be most useful, or if you think I'd want to look at both?

Many thanks!

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

DataMerge is built-in option of InDesign - for simple design should be enough. 

ID-Tasker - is a tool that I've created - and DataMerge version is on steroids.

But the tool is PC only - for direct use. 

Of course can be highly customised.