Have you ever wanted to extract an image from a PDF and get it into Photoshop, Illustrator, or somewhere else? It’s a common enough need. For example, smaller clients of graphic designers often have difficulty tracking down high-resolution or resolution-independent versions of their logos, leaving a designer scouring through the client’s previously published material in search of a suitable copy of the logo. More often than not, the designer will redraw the logo or attempt to use a low-resolution version from the client’s website. If you have access to a PDF featuring the client’s logo, there’s a better way: extract the image from the PDF.
- In Acrobat, look for the Selection tool on the Select and Zoom toolbar. Like most Adobe applications, the Selection tool is a black arrow and can be accessed by pressing the keyboard shortcut V (if you’ve re-enabled single-key shortcuts).
- With the Selection tool, click once on the image you need. The entire image will highlight when it’s properly selected.
- Right-click (CTRL-click on single-button Mac mice) on the highlighted image and choose Copy Image to copy the graphic to the clipboard or Save Image As to write it back to disk as a standalone file.
Now you can bring the image into Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, QuarkXPress, or wherever you need it.