Reduce 30mb file down to about 2mb?

[Reca...@adobeforums.com]

Hey Guys...

I need some help as soon as you can help me figure this out. My company used to put out a monthly "sales flier". It has been 6 or 7 months since that has actually happened. Previously, the fliers were done up in Publisher by the boss and to be quite honest the end result was very blah looking. I was asked to get this project going again and decided to ditch Publisher for Photoshop.

I created a 2 files (Page 1 and Page 2). Each file is 8-1/2" x 11" with a resolution of 300px. Each file contains 6 large images reduced in size via smart object along with text. As you can imagine this produced a file size of nearly 30mb each. This is too big for us to email out to our customer base which consists of about 100 customers.

What are my options to get these files down to 2mb or below but still keep the integrity of the work? I've tried reducing the resolution, saving as pdf with jpg compression down to low, converting to greyscale (this is something I don't really want to do as the look and feel of the flier is centered all around the colors).

I suppose I could also use some sort of zip/rar program to reduce a bit smaller.

Am I dreaming to big? Or is this possible?

Thanks in advance.

[boblevine]

Photoshop is not a layout application. You should be using InDesign...in
fact, you'd be better off with Publisher.

Bob

[Don_Mc...@adobeforums.com]

Try saving as a pdf format, which most people can open. Even if you were to use InDesign, as Bob says, you would want to save as pdf.

[Jim]

<Reca...@adobeforums.com> wrote in message
news:59b86...@webcrossing.la2eafNXanI...

It does seem to me that PS is not the application to use for this purpose.
You would be better off with Word for the text with pictures inserted into
the document. If you are using an inkjet, 300 ppi is overkill.

I am responsible for a monthly newsletter for a non-profit organization.
Each newsletter has four pages with one image inserted into the first page.
The largest size so far has been less than 1 MB.
The images are tiff or jpg depending on my mood at the moment. It doesn't
seem to matter much as to the image format because Word does what it wants
regardless. I also specify no more than 200 ppi because that is plenty for
an inkjet printer.

Jim

[Denn...@adobeforums.com]

You should have no problem saving a 2-page, 8.5x11, 300PPI image in under 2mb.

Make sure you have "Preserve Photoshop editing capabilities" turned off. There should be no need for your viewers to need that capability nor the overhead it creates. An additional way to make sure you aren't saving unnecessary elements is to save a master PSD/TIF first, and then flatten all layers and save the PDF.

Ask yourself how many of the viewers will actually take the time to print the flyer. If not many, consider reducing the PPI to 200 or 150. I really don't think that will be necessary to create a file less than 2mb but it is an option.

[Reca...@adobeforums.com]

thanks for the replies guys. that was fast!

my option to photoshop was that i am familiar with it. i have never used indesign nor publisher. not that i couldn't learn it as i went along, i am just more comfortable with photoshop to the point where i was able to knock the flier out in no time... well some time, just very little.

dennis, i recall that i did try the flatten image trick which did knock down the size to about 15mb if i recall correctly. about printing, i know that when i was a customer receiving this very flier in the past, i did print it for easier reference.

i'll mess with it a bit in the morning and if all else fails, i'll give indesign or publisher a try.

thanks again for the replies.

[Denn...@adobeforums.com]

15mb is WAY too big. Something is wrong. I did my own quick test just to make sure I wasn't off base and I was able to get one 8.5x11, 300ppi page down to around 1mb with medium quality. Using minimum quality got me down to around 700k and was still perfectly usable for a flyer.

Make sure you have "bi-cubic downsampling" selected in the PDF save dialogue and set both the "to" and "for images above" to 300 PPI.

[Reca...@adobeforums.com]

thanks again for jumping on this dennis. i'll check out that bi-cubic setting tomorrow. all photographed product images used in the flier are 300dpi as well. then scaled down using the smart object setting in our cs3 extended program. each page has about 6 of these images along with product description text. does the amount of info (images/text) added to a new blank 8.5" x 11" 300ppi hinder the overall amount the file can be compressed?

really appreciate the help and look forward to being able to send out this flier as is to our customers, either in jpg or my preferred method of pdf.

thanks again.

[boblevine]

> and then flatten all layers and save the PDF.

Very bad idea. It will rasterize all the text. Just save it as PSD and
then save as PDF sans Photoshop compatibility.

Bob

[Reca...@adobeforums.com]

Bob

interesting. could this be the reason why my text was very pixalated when trying this? perhaps i can flatten everything but the text? i'll be in the office in a couple of hours and will continue to work on this.

thanks for the advice guys!

[Denn...@adobeforums.com]

Good point Bob, although in this case at 300PPI it may not matter a great deal unless Reca is using the minimum Jpeg quality setting in the PDF generation process with very small fonts. I was actually able to get a smaller file in a test by rasterizing at medium than by including the text elements un-rasterized. There were some minor Jpeg artifacts on 9-point text but I would consider it usable. Reca would need to judge.

I also noted some weirdness on the version I created with un-rasterized text. For some reason, certain words appeared like they were in bold at almost all zoom levels. Not sure if this is a bug that crops up occasionally or something I did in my haste. I am certain I didn't accidentally bold the text though. :)

[Reca...@adobeforums.com]

hey guys... i wanted to say thanks for the all of the suggestions. the info i lead off this post with was a bit incorrect.

have 2 files for the flier, page 1 and page 2. each file is roughly 55mb in size. i played around a bit this morning with trying to get the file exported pdf file size down to a reasonable level and still some integrity to the overall look.

ended up printing to pdf and saving the file that way. the end result of the file size for both was 1.5mb. the viewable pdf as well as the printed pdf was suitable for my boss, although i would have rather had no compression with high quality output.

think i'll take mr. levine's advice and go with publisher next month.

thanks again.

[boblevine]

That was NOT my advice. My advice was to use InDesign. I simply said
you'd be better off with Publisher but that just a pick your poison kind
of thing.

Bob

[Reca...@adobeforums.com]

lol... i'll have a look at some basic online indesign tutorials throughout the month to get a sense of how to navigate and utilize the features. can you recommend any?

[boblevine]

Lynda.com

Bob

[Reca...@adobeforums.com]

nice, thanks sir.