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General discussion

Need to convert pdf HQ image to printer-friendly format

Mar 29, 2010 6:52PM PDT

I was sent my wedding invitation that is made up of one background photo, some smaller foregound photos and some print that I need to convert to a different format to upload to costco online photo shop where they will print the invites on a commercial printer, I presume.

The current image is formatted for 5x7 and is 7.76MB in size. Right now I am looking at going with BMP due to its large size (9+MB) and pixels (2100x1500). Is that the best choice?

What would be the best format I should upload the image as?

I have seen several different possibilities such as my choice of BMP but also read about TIFF and JPEG but don't know if converting from a pdf format to one of those would cause any quality loss/distortion.

Please help! This is my wedding invite I'm discussing! Thank you!!

Discussion is locked

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Difficult.
Mar 29, 2010 9:01PM PDT

Your "I presume" needs clarification. What exactly are Costo going to do for you with your photos?

I've had a quick look at the Costo web site, Costo Photos, but I cannot navigate much further without signing up and logging in.

I don't know much about Tiff images, but BitMaps, .bmp , have much better resolution than JPEGs, and do not lose any detail. JPEGs are compressed, and so pixel resolution is lost and quality is poorer. That's fine for most web site images, but I am not sure it is good enough for photos. But the trouble is, as you rightly point out, BitMaps are considerably larger than other file formats, and so take longer to upload. Some web sites would not accept uploading bitmap quality images.

Does Costo give any guidance on this?

Also I am not sure what you mean about converting from PDF format. PDF are text files and can have images embedded in the files. Are you able to extract these photos from that PDF file?

Mark

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costco and pdf extraction
Mar 30, 2010 4:42AM PDT

Mark,

Thanks for your response. Costco is not specific about what file type they want uploaded and what they are going to do is take the image and print it as your would expect from a digital developer (WalMart, etc.).

I got the image by copying it from the pdf file, using "paint" to paste and then save in bmp. But I'm not sure about the quality of that method. The bmp file i have saved from that method gives me a 9MB file and 2100x1500 pixels. Does that sound right?

Thanks!

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That's a big file isn't it.
Mar 30, 2010 5:51AM PDT

9 MB is quite large for an image file. But BMP is certainly better than JPG.

I can't comment on the size because I don't know what sized print you want from Costo. I do think it's strange they don't give you any guidance on size and format.

That sized image you have is almost as large width wise than my two monitors put together. Is that the sized print you want?

Mark

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print size
Mar 30, 2010 6:18AM PDT

No, I want to print the original image size embedded into the pdf file which is for 5" x 7" and that's the option I choose when uploading to costco. It looks as if costco re-sizes according to the size photo chosen to print on their site.

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In that case
Mar 30, 2010 8:26PM PDT

all I can suggest is to 'go for it'. I don't know how much this service costs, but you may think it is worth a chance.

I hope it works well for you.