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| ( Image 1 ) |
Just the other day I was
working on a little project for a friend of mine and I needed a page out of one
of my PDF’s. While I was doing this, my friend was looking over my shoulder and
watching me working on his project. I
had both Photoshop and the Bridge open so I just dragged the PDF I needed over into
Photoshop and the normal dialog box opened up with the page options and other
items. My friend (who also has been
using Photoshop for years) says “did you just open a PDF in Photoshop? ” I guess this was totally new to him and I just
figured anyone using Photoshop knew you could open PDF’s this way; they are
after all Adobe products and are one of the options in the Save As drop down
items menu's right?
Well for those of you that didn’t know this, I’ll show you how easy it is in just a few steps. I’m pretty sure it works in Elements the same way.
I usually just Drag and Drop
the PDF into Photoshop because I have a dual monitor set-up and that’s easier
for me, but you can just right click the PDF file and click “Open With” to choose
your program. When it opens up you’ll get
a dialog box like the one above ( Image 1) that has all of the page options like the Name of the file,
Image Size and Resolution, Color Mode etc-etc.
Depending what you want to do
with the PDF, you can open all the Pages, a Single Page or just the Images
separately, you decide in this box.
( Image 2 )
I usually leave these set at the defaults because PDF"s are usually pretty high resolution, like this one set at 300 Pixels/Inch, so I can edit it in Photoshop later or print it out pretty easily.
For this example, I needed just one page for my project (page 66) so I kept it at the default setting up top called Pages and highlighted the page I needed. You do this by just clicking on the page itself as seen here in blue. ( Image 3 ) Then I just click OK on the bottom of that dialog box to open it up in Photoshop.
Now depending on what you chose, a page or an image, this will
decide how it opens in Photoshop. If you chose Page, then the page will come up
in Photoshop with no background, just the text and the images on a transparent layer. If you just wanted to read the page like I do most of the time, it helps if I add a layer below it filled with white.
I like shortcut keys so I just make sure my colors are set to default by tapping the D key, then holding the Control key down and clicking on the create new layer button on the bottom of the Layers panel as seen here. (Image 4 ) This will create a layer underneath your PDF page and while still holding down the Control key, I tap the Backspace key to fill it with white. Now you can see it easier and if you decide you’d like to keep it this way, you can hold the Control key again (or keeping it held down) and tap the letter E to flatten those two layers and save it any way you choose. Pretty easy right? I hope this helps someone, nice huh?
Well for those of you that didn’t know this, I’ll show you how easy it is in just a few steps. I’m pretty sure it works in Elements the same way.
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| ( Image 2 ) |
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| ( Image 3 ) |
( Image 2 )
I usually leave these set at the defaults because PDF"s are usually pretty high resolution, like this one set at 300 Pixels/Inch, so I can edit it in Photoshop later or print it out pretty easily.
For this example, I needed just one page for my project (page 66) so I kept it at the default setting up top called Pages and highlighted the page I needed. You do this by just clicking on the page itself as seen here in blue. ( Image 3 ) Then I just click OK on the bottom of that dialog box to open it up in Photoshop.
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| ( Image 4 ) |
I like shortcut keys so I just make sure my colors are set to default by tapping the D key, then holding the Control key down and clicking on the create new layer button on the bottom of the Layers panel as seen here. (Image 4 ) This will create a layer underneath your PDF page and while still holding down the Control key, I tap the Backspace key to fill it with white. Now you can see it easier and if you decide you’d like to keep it this way, you can hold the Control key again (or keeping it held down) and tap the letter E to flatten those two layers and save it any way you choose. Pretty easy right? I hope this helps someone, nice huh?
Remember, as always, keep
shooting and have some fun!
