Import How can I import a PDF document?

[PhilBurton]

Lightroom Version

Lightroom 9.2

Operating System

1. Windows 10

I have a 44 page PDF that is actually a scan of handwritten pages. Someone sent this PDF to me. The scans are in color, which means that a lot of the pages are hard to read because the paper is itself colored and the ink (or pencil?) is not that dark.

I know it's possible to edit each page separately in Photoshop. I was wondering if there is some way that Lightroom can import a PDF or is there a way to convert an entire PDF into a format that Lightroom can import?

 

[Johan Elzenga]

There are speudo printer drivers that can print to a file. Usually that file is a PDF, but if you can find one that can print to JPEG, then you could print the entire PDF to JPEG’s and import these in Lightroom.

 

[johnrellis]

I was wondering if there is some way that Lightroom can import a PDF or is there a way to convert an entire PDF into a format that Lightroom can import?

If you open the PDF in Photoshop, you can select the option to open the images rather than pages:

Select all of the image thumbnails and click OK.

That will open each image separately in Photoshop. To save all the open images, you could do File > Close All, and you'll be prompted to save each of the 44 images separately. Alternatively, you could record a Photoshop action that just saves a photo as a JPEG, and then use File > Automate > Batch to run the action on all the open images, as described here. Alternatively alternatively, you could use Adobe Acrobat or an online service, as described here.

But since you only have 44 images, you could do File > Close All and be done by the time you've investigated some of the other methods.

 

[johnrellis]

This free service seems to work: Extract all images from PDF free online. I know nothing more about it, though.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

I don’t think the OP wants to extract images from a PDF. That is not what he says. He says the PDF is a scan of handwritten pages.

 

[Klaas]

Spezialiced software like ABBYY Fine Reader can do the job. It stores PDFs in whatever picture format you want.

Klaas

 

[johnrellis]

I have a 44 page PDF that is actually a scan of handwritten pages. Someone sent this PDF to me. The scans are in color, which means that a lot of the pages are hard to read because the paper is itself colored and the ink (or pencil?) is not that dark. I was wondering if there is some way that Lightroom can import a PDF or is there a way to convert an entire PDF into a format that Lightroom can import?

To elaborate on my previous reply: LR does not support any multi-page document formats for image editing.

Thus, the only way to use LR to enhance the scans of the handwritten pages (which are stored in the PDF as separate images) is to first extract those page scans as 44 individual images. So, if you want to use LR, the problem devolves to one of extracting the 44 images as easily as possible (see my previous post).

(Note that TIFF supports multi-page documents. While both LR and PS handle TIFF, they only open the first image in a multi-page TIFF.)

 

[johnrellis]

Yet another way to batch-extract all the images in a PDF: Use the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to convert the PDF to Word .docx format. Then use Word to save the file in HTML format -- this creates a folder containing all the images.

 

[PhilBurton]

Yet another way to batch-extract all the images in a PDF: Use the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to convert the PDF to Word .docx format. Then use Word to save the file in HTML format -- this creates a folder containing all the images.

John,

Thanks for all your suggestions. I will follow up on them in the next few days. About using Acrobat to convert PDF to work, that may be the most straightforward approach that allows me to preserve image quality. I will also try a trial download of ABBYY.

 

[Gnits]

As you have Photoshop already, opening up the pdf using PS allows you to select all pages in the pdf. Unfortunately , as outlined above, Photoshop opens each page as a separate document. For a once off exercise this is not the end of the world. Just save the individual pages to a folder and import to Lr.

If you have the full version of Acrobat, you can open the pdf and use a save as option to save all the pages as images, with a single dialogue. It will add a counter to each filename.

The same feature applies to InDesign.

If you are going to be doing this regularly, and you do not have Acrobat Pro or InDesign and it is not an economic option to subscribe or purchase these, then consider getting Serif Affinity Publisher. This has most of the functionality of InDesign. I bought a perpetual licence on special offer last week for 25 Euros. I have a full version of InDesign CS6 on my legacy workstation, but could not figure out how to install it on a new laptop for travel, so Serif Publisher will be my desktop publisher tool of choice on my laptop. I just did a test on Serif Affinity Publisher and was able to export a 4 page pdf to individual jpgs in a folder with a single export dialogue.

BTW.... I have always found InDesign to be an extremely functional but horrendous tool to use.. I understand why it is used by major desktop publishing gurus, especially when they have built efficient templates for their workflow. Its most powerful feature is to be able to do a mailmerge, bringing images into a document. So far Affinity Publisher does not have this feature ... but there has been a huge demand for this feature and I hope it will be implemented in the not too distant future.

A lot of CAD users output drawings to PDF, so if you have access to any cad software you might be able to work some angle from that direction.

 

[Victoria Bampton]

If you know anyone with a Mac, it's a simple Export action from Preview to save them as JPEGs.

 

[johnrellis]

Unfortunately, with Preview and Acrobat Reader, you have to select each page individually and do Export; but with Acrobat Pro, you can do a batch export.