.pdf creator for high quality images

[chassis]

Hello

Would like to create a .pdf mini-portfolio to send to prospective clients. What is the best tool/workflow for this? Images would be in tif or jpg formats. I would like the end result to be a not-too-large (emailable size) .pdf. The portfolio would also have text and some very simple graphic elements.

My simple mind thinks Powerpoint saved as a .pdf. Is this the highest quality method?

Thanks for any comments.

[Leigh]

.pdf files can contain three types of images: plain text, simple line drawings, and full detailed images like pictures.

The pdf creation software does not modify any of these elements in any way.
It just puts a "wrapper" around each to identify the contents to the pdf reader so the content is displayed properly.

Whatever images you present to the .pdf creator software will be contained in the final .pdf document unchanged.

So you need to manipulate the image files before putting them in the .pdf. Any edit s/w will work.
Your choice of creator software does not matter.

- Leigh

[chassis]

Thanks Leigh. I will give it a try. My concern is/was loss of quality.

[djdister]

If possible, create your PDF straight from Photoshop - don't bother using Powerpoint as an intermediary. And once you have your PDF portfolio, you can apply PDF file protections such as preventing anyone from copying, extracting or even printing from the file.

[jp]

Thanks Leigh. I will give it a try. My concern is/was loss of quality.

There's always a balance between quality and file size/speed.

[IanG]

I've used CorelDraw since the mid 1990s and used to regularly send work to be printed commercially - small catalogues, posters A4 to A1, cards, calendars etc. I've also created Portfolios for on-line use. You chose the quality parameters when you first save the PDF

A free alternative and now very good is Inkscape.

Ian

[IanG]

There's always a balance between quality and file size/speed.

I've gone around that by sometimes creating much larger PDF files, for instance an A2 set of posters this is the Master copy, that can then be scaled down to A3. The advantage of our European A sizes is A2 folded in half is A3, A3 folded is A4 etc so perfect for re-scaling.

I use the larger A2 posters laminated for lectures while the smaller version is an A4 4 page article - essentially the same as a portfolio.

Ian

[tonyowen]

Quote "Adobe's *.PDF Portable Document Format is a file format used to present and exchange documents reliably, independent of software, hardware, or operating system." unquote.
The pdf protocol was developed decades ago to overcome the then problem of a document's formatting changing as it was moved from one computer to another.
For instance writing a Word document on one computer and sending that word.doc file to another computer could result in the then opened file being in a form that was different from the originating file.
At that time any *.pdf file was unchangeable unless opened with Adobe's Acrobat program.
The other advantage of a *.pdf file is that It can be read/opened on any computer platform provided that the appropriate Adobe's Reader is installed. So a document written in WordPerfect [and saved as a *.pdf file] could be opened on a computer that only has the Word program installed.
Nowadays almost every text or image generating program enables the generated file to be saved as a *.pdf file.
Also free software is available that enables the 'binding' of individual pdf files into a single pdf file.
However, the bottom line is that the pdf format will not improve the quality of the originating file.
regards
Tony

[Andy Eads]

Check this page out. There are numerous settings that can affect the quality seen on another computer.
https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/pdf-conversion-settings.html

[andy]

create your portfolio in Indesign, you can link your fullsize images directly to the document and then compress and downsample on export to a reasonable size. This gives you the maximum amount of control and flexibility.

[lindsaywood1991]

You can high quality images by using powerpoint and edit in Photoshop.

[David Lobato]

You can save directly to pdf in Photoshop since it's an Adobe product. I've done that several times.

[Christopher Barrett]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Acrobat, itself. In Acrobat Pro, you can collect a group of documents and create a pdf from them. The way that I've created portfolios was to start with a title page and then include a collection of images, each with a white border made in Photoshop. There are two ways you can go about this to preserve image quality. Either start with jpegs at a compression level that you are comfortable with and save the PDF without optimization, or start with Tiffs and have Acrobat do the compression (optimizing from the Save dialog). I haven't tested the options for best quality. I also usually add a closing page that has my contact info. What's nice here is that you can turn your URL and email address into links.

HTH,
CB

[chassis]

Thanks for the comments to all. At the moment I am using Powerpoint, saved as a .pdf.