Skip to main content
A
Anonymous
June 7, 2010
Question

Importing layered pdfs into Photoshop

  • June 7, 2010
  • 2 replies
  • 52338 views

I'm a landscape architect and use Photoshop to colour up my CAD designs. It is a big time saver if I could carry across the separate layer information in my CAD plan to within Photoshop - it would make it much quicker to colour in just the paths, for example.

At the moment I do this by creating a series of separate pdfs from autocad, each showing different layer(s), then overlay these in photoshop.This works but is rather cumbersome.

It is possible to create layered pdfs automatically within autocad, keeping the cad layers separate as layers in the pdf. However, so far as I can see, there isn't a way to get photoshop to read in that pdf and use it to create its own layered psd file.

Maybe there is a nifty file converter routine out there if photoshop really does not support this. Any ideas gratefully received!

Thanks, Matt.

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    2 replies

    Mylenium
    Mylenium
    Legend
    June 8, 2010

    Maybe there is a nifty file converter routine out there if photoshop really does not support this.

    Your nifty file converter routine is a dedicated export plug-in for AutoCAD that can either produce structured PDFs or layered TIFFs/ PSDs. In short: without special prerequisites, PDFs only store the appearance of a page and that means that text gets outlined or paths arbitrarily split up. Therefore, you'd still have the same problem in Illustrator. Sorry to shatter your illusions, but there is no simple or free solution here. I could imagine, though, saving multiple "layers" from ACAD by hiding elements and then re-assembiling those separately exported documents in PS or AI...

    Mylenium

    A
    Anonymous
    June 8, 2010

    Yes, thanks for that.

    Autocad 2010/11 does indeed produce pdfs with a mapping of cad layers to pdf layers. So, for instance, I can have all the trees on a CAD layer and they appear on a separate pdf layer. I can switch visibility of the pdfs layers on and off within Acrobat.

    Actually, you have been able to do this since about 2006 if you have both acrobat professional and autocad. When you install acrobat it creates a little menu bar add-on inside autocad for creating pdfs, and an option within that allows preservation of layer information.

    What it seems I cannot do is to ask Photoshop to import that structured pdf file and keep the layered structure. Which seems a little daft given that Adobe make Photoshop and are the originators of the pdf format.

    Oh, and yes, you are right that it is possible to manually save multiple pdfs out of autocad, each one having different layers visible, then reassemble them within Photoshop to re-create the layered structure. That is what I was describing as our current approach in my question. As I pointed out there, it is rather laborious. The sort of thing you would rather hope software could do automatically. Never mind!

    Regards

    Matt

    A
    Anonymous
    June 7, 2010

    PDF files become rasterized when loaded into Photoshop. (That's not good)

    I'd open CAD-created PDF files in Illustrator to keep them in vector format.

    As PDF vector data in Illustrator, it may be infinitely easier to fill shapes (depending on how your CAD program created the file - - - some CAD apps create line segments instead of solid lines in PDF)

    A
    Anonymous
    June 8, 2010

    Thanks for that.

    We do not have Illustrator at present so I would prefer a way to work with the software we already own and know how to use. Photoshop does have nice textural painting tools that work well for rendering our sort of plans - of course Illustrator may have these too, I don't know as I haven't used it yet.

    You didn't say if Illustrator can work with layered pdfs - does it?

    Regards

    A
    Anonymous
    June 8, 2010

    Matt_McGrath wrote:

    You didn't say if Illustrator can work with layered pdfs - does it?

    Illustrator can open PDF with layers if it is saved in a certain manner. Your CAD software might be saving the files okay. The only way to know for sure is to check. There is a free 30-day trial of Illustrator. Even though it may be an expense to purchase it, it may be much cheaper than wrestling with this in Photoshop.

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