Decreasing File Sizes 

Compression and Decreasing your File Size

There are various ways to reduce the size of an image file

Flatten your Images in Photoshop 

1. Make a copy of your image files that have mutiple layers

2. Open Photoshop and open one of your copied files

3. Select Layer>Flatten Image

4. This combines all your layers into one single background layer decreasing your file size.

5. Then File>Export>Export As

6. Change the format to JPG

7. Adjust the quality slider - The file size of the file will be displayed on the left hand side of the export box 

8. Optional - If you need to further reduce the file size reduce the resolution of your file

9. Click the export button and choose a folder to save the exported file into.

Flatten your Images in Photoshop using the Image Processor Feature

If you have several files that you would like to flatten, then you can use the Image Processor feature within Photoshop to automate this process.

1. Open Photoshop. Do not open the files you want to flatten. 

2. Go to File > Scripts > Image Processor. 

3. Under Step 1 in the Image Processor window, select the folder that contains your multi-layered images. 

4. Under Step 2, choose a location to save your new flattened files (you can save them in the same location or a new folder). 

5. Under Step 3 (File Type):

• Check Save as JPEG

• Set the Quality slider 

6. Click Run in the top right corner. Photoshop will open, flatten, and save every image in that folder automatically. 

Resize your Images in Photoshop and export as a PDF File

1. Resize your images in Photoshop before you bring them into Indesign or Illustrator

2. Image>Image Size

3. Reduce the Image size

4. Save As Photoshop PDF

5. Adobe PDF Preset:High Quality Print

6. Compression

7. Set Your Downsampling to 150ppi (Pixels Per Inch) For Images above 225 PPI

8. Save PDF

Acrobat Pro DC for PDFs

1. Tools>Optimize PDF>Advanced Optimization>

2. Downsample to 150ppi

3. Image Quality to High

4. Export

Using Adobe Indesign to export your PDF

File>Export>Adobe PDF

Adobe PDF Preset:High Quality Print

Compression

Set Your Downsampling to 150ppi (Pixels Per Inch) For Images above 225 PPI

Compression Automatic JPEG

Image Quality: Maximum (If your file size is still too much decrease this to High)

Export

If after all this your file is still too large change your Downsampling to 100ppi

This is a useful video guide on how to do this in InDesign

If you file save size is too small or you lose too much quality just bump things back up

slightly.