will it update the combined file in Acrobat?
No.
You may want to study/learn what these formats mean and what you lose at the price of a smaller file.
Fill it with high resolution images for quality output and you will get larger files; or fill it with low-rez JPEGs for instant on-screen viewing … and small files.
Heavy carrier bag or a light one: your choice depending on your current needs.
If you want to produce PDF files that are similar in size to the GIF files, you will need to convert your images to be more GIF-like prior to saving as PDF. This means scaling to the final output size and switching your document from 'RGB' mode to 'Index' color prior to saving. Your PDF files were probably huge because you were using millions of colors in them (rgb mode).
Of course, this dumbing down to a lesser color mode should be done on a copy; not your original file.
Besides the visual quality (which is fine for my purposes), what else
do you lose?
I suggest that you run a test for yourself. Take a detailed, high-quality art file with some graphics, type, logos, and photos. Create a series of PDFs of it, ranging from the highest press quality (or PDF/X-1a) to the smallest file size, and just compare them on-screen via Adobe Reader or Acrobat.
Neil
suggest that you run a test for yourself
It's the only way to learn, really.
I suggest that you run a test for yourself.
Hey Neil, that's definitely a great suggestion and I tried to do this about halfway through the thread when I posted
I certainly didn't run the full spectrum of tests, but I wanted to test cristoph's assertion that the file size would increase by simply saving as Photoshop PDF. I exported the images into a compressed file format and created a combined PDF using Acrobat. I asked Jim to explain more because he said I was "comparing apples to oranges" and that I should study/learn more about the formats, but then he mentioned that
Visual quality is all there is to lose.
which seemed to settle things for me. I was just wondering if there was something beyond the visual quality. Thanks.
My first post was only commenting on the post that immediately preceded it. I never addressed the original question by recommending any particular file format. I was just comparing GIF and PDF.
I personally would stick with PSD as the working format and save out another format to pass off for review by clients.
If you are looking for convenience of conversion for a client copy, check out the various automation functions of Photoshop. You might make it a simple one-click issue to make a duplicate file in another format.