pdf to jpg problem

[steveward]

I created a pdf from a program called MicroStation (similar to AutoCAD). I opened the pdf in Xara Xtreme Pro and saved it out as a jpg - 100% quality setting. (See first image.) I didn't care for the quality of the image, even after fiddling with different settings, so I opened this pdf in various other programs and saved to jpg, but got similar results. Then I opened the pdf in Photoshop and saved it as a jpg, which looks really nice. (See second image.) Illustrator will also create a jpg similar to Photoshop.

So my question is: What am I doing wrong? Shouldn't Xara, Acrobat, etc. be able to produce quality jpg images from pdf files? Is there a setting that I need to enable/disable? I have attached the pdf file in case others wants to experiment.

Thanks.

- Steve

[Egg Bramhill]

Steve, jpg's are not the best image format for this type of image. Jpg's are best at photographic images. When an image contains large areas of a flat colour your better off using gif or better still png.

[steve.ledger]

Well I have to say, this is all interesting, but if you want to save the PDF image to a JPG you simply could use the Adobe Reader 'snapshot' tool which copies the captured area to the clipboard. Open up dear 'ol Paintbrush, Edit->Paste, then save as .png (or .jpg if you must)

Unless you want to edit the PDF, there's no reason to open it in Xara simply to save a raster version.

[steveward]

Egg, that's a good point, but I didn't have much success exporting a decent gif or png image from Xara Xtreme Pro using that same pdf.

[Egg Bramhill]

Further to the above the text within your file is really crap. Zoom into it closely and notice how jagged it is. Can MicroStation convert the text to shapes before pdf export? Text within Adobe PDF's aren't treated as text and 3rd party programs can't render them (There just lines in XXP) but Adobe products seem to be able to handle them (But still not very well)

See the png below. I've rewritten some of the text in XXP so you can see the difference.

[steve.ledger]

There's some text off the canvas to the left, which when you zoom in is fine.

F
1153
1070
1001
1071
1076
1078
1077
1079
3002
3072
1156
A
B
1006
1157
1099
PEORIA AVE.
LEWIS AVE.
36TH ST. N.
46TH ST. N.
56TH ST. N.
CINCINNATI AVE.
66TH ST. N.
25TH W. AVE.

[steveward]

True, the text in the pdf is not the sharpest, yet Photoshop and Illustrator are able to produce a really nice jpg from this pdf file that other applications can't. How?

[steveward]

Egg, I've noticed the same thing with the text in the pdf file, and sadly there's no way to convert the text to shapes before creating the pdf file, unless I copy the file and drop all the text to lines/shapes, create the pdf from that file, then delete the file once the pdf was created, but nothing convenient. I might try that tomorrow, though, just to see if it makes a difference.

My curiosity was aroused when I saw a nice jpg version of this file and thought I could make my own jpg version at a much smaller file size. That's when I started noticing no application I had could replicate the quality of jpg saved out of Photoshop.

- Steve

[Luciano]

Steve,
I got a better looking jpg with a two-step process.

I opened the File in XXP, then I chose arrange -> create bitmap copy.
So I made a 300dpi 24Bit PNG; double click on it and Xara picture editor opens, blur it by a small amount (-20 or -16), then you can export it as jpg or png or whatever is required (see picture).

I hope it helps.
regards Luciano

[steve.ledger]

Good grief, talk about going from A to Z to get to B

No-one saw Post #3??