Blurry PDF when importing into Photoshop

Legend

Please take a step back. You seem to expect Photoshop to do something that is just impossible. Please tell us what you want to do, or accept that Photoshop will do this. All the signs are that you are trying to use Photoshop to do something that Photoshop is not suitable for. As we have asked: WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS STRANGE THING?

Participating Frequently

the issue is i that i would like to add pictures or colors e.g. paint bucket etc into the drawing which is way faster than illustrator

Legend

Yes, you rasterised it. That's what Photoshop does, it can't import a vector PDF as vectors.

Legend

You have zoomed in too much for screen viewing. It will be poor quality above 100% as all images will (except simple rectangulasr boxes).

Printing is a different story. Printing vector art accurately requires high resolution, perhaps 600 ppi, perhaps the device resolution in demanding cases (e.g. 2400 ppi, a file size for you in the dozens of GB). This is why it is not done with Photoshop. Illustrator and Acrobat are the right tools for working with vector art.

Participating Frequently

the zooming was done with aim to show how grainy it is..and also I have encountered such issues before without checking it properly which led to printing grainy drawings as an architecture student.

I have also been using 300 dpi as my template for quite awhile now..but i am not sure as to why i am encountering such problems now

K

Kenneth Kawamoto

Community Expert

The other way is to create a Smart Object by File > Place Embedded... (or Place Linked...). This way, you would retain the vector data.

> i would like to add pictures or colors e.g. paint bucket

Ah... that's a wrong approach I am afraid...

Legend

Yes, if you multiply the resolution by 2 you multiply the file size by 4. What are you trying to achieve - the big picture? What you are trying to do may have an entirely different approach that is not going to need impossible file sizes, and might not be done in Photoshop.

K

Kenneth Kawamoto

Community Expert

I'd open the PDF in Photoshop as min. 600dpi - can you try that?

Participating Frequently

ok the quality definitely improved following your suggestion of 600 dpi and also 1000 dpi however the file size definitely shot up from 200 mb to 500mb to 1.3gb

600 dpi

1000dpi

are there any other options to look out for?
also is there a difference between setting the dpi when creating a file and opening the pdf directly with photoshop then setting the dpi from there?
thank you for your advice though!

K

Kenneth Kawamoto

Community Expert

Inevitably, the higher the resolution, the larger the file size. But why do you want to rasterize a vector file (i.e. open vector PDF in Photoshop) in the first place? If you want to print with crisp line, why not just print the PDF...?

Legend

I think you have zoomed in over 100% after placing to get the second screen shot? If so, just don't. You are giving up being vector, and the resolution is fixed into pixels at the moment you import. I assume the first screen shot is zoomed in using Acrobat, which is fine.