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Image From PDF Copy Tip

J

Jay_NOLA

Well-known member
One problem that I've seen when copying an image from PDF is sometimes the image gets a back blackground or gets messed up in doing a normal copy and paste.

By accident I discovered that Adobe Elements and some other image editors can open a PDF and you can get the image that way and avoid most of the image copy and paste problems that can occur by try to copy and past from a PDF and paste into a image editor. On my over 6 years old copy of Adobe Elements for example if I open a PDF in it I get the option to select a page as an image or to select an image from the PDF to open.

Doing that is the only way I found to get some images without having the mess up, color change, etc. that occurs with using a PDF reader and selecting copy image and pasting the copy into a image editor.

One word of caution is that some PDF are locked and require a password to open you won't be able to do this if the PDF you are wanting to open in a graphics program if the PDF is locked.
 
That's a great tip for me, Jay - thanks! Until now I've been spending quite a bit of time carefully editing out that black background.
 
I find the Windows Snipping Tool to work in most cases just as well as long as there's not text wrap that follows the image.
 
You only have to snip and remove text/clone, etc. with the method I gave if for some reason you have to open the page as an image cause the program can't just open the image without a problem.

The method I gave is going to make you not have to do any snipping or removing of text if you just import an image from the PDF. If you have to import the page as an image you will have to snip. On my Adobe Elements if you open a PDF it has a little dot I can check to view just the images from the PDF or the pages as images when it is showing me with it can import from the PDF.

One thing to watch out for that is that sometimes the image in a PDF is an image with text layered on top of it. So if you extract the image the text is missing. You'll have to open the page as an image an do a sniping, erasing and cropping. I had to do that with a tavern menu for one adventure.

Also, sometimes depending on the PDF, image used in it, and graphic program you import it into. You may have one or more layers you can select for it show up in the graphics program. I've seen some D&D adventures maps when opened the way I gave have 2 or more layers available when opened in Photoshop. Usually its a the second lawyer lets you show or hide text (room numbers) on a map.
 
This is a problem I've run into as well, getting the occasional bit of art for the encounter libraries. Thanks for the tips, guys!
 
Yea, the black background is usually due to improper handling of the transparency (most of the time a PDF will store images in JPEG2000 format, an uncommon format of JPG that allows transparency, and can create issues if the CMYK conversion isn't handled properly. IIRC Windows will save these as PNG and sometimes you get the transparency converted to black).

If you would like a free and open source hint, and I suppose a self plug, you can install and use my fork of MapTool @ http://maptool.nerps.net

Even if you insist on using other tools, you can grab and save the images you need (I save them as PNG files). But feel free to explore MapTool for your VTT! Creating your maps is pretty easy (right-click on a map to auto-resize the Grid to match the grid on the map!)

The first example are images pulled from a Bestiary, the second is an example grabbing the Maps from an Interactive Map Folio, (where the PDF uses buttons to turn on/off grid and hide/show GM tags). There can be up to 4 copies of the map, and I extract all 4 (a lot of other programs have trouble extracting these images!)

All image extractions are pulled at full resolution of what is stored in the PDF, so you don't suffer any image loss.
 

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Before you do all that make sure you do a Google search first. Sometimes I can find a clean version of the image.
 
ruhar said:
Before you do all that make sure you do a Google search first. Sometimes I can find a clean version of the image.
Click to expand...

True dat. That is sometimes the quickest/easiest solution...

Hint, if you have crappy version of the image, drag it onto google image search and search via that image, it may yield results...
 
Jamz said:
If you would like a free and open source hint, and I suppose a self plug, you can install and use my fork of MapTool @ http://maptool.nerps.net
Click to expand...

Ok I'm interested - do you plan on having any actual complied releases for this fork? All I can find on github is the source and honestly I don't want to download the JDK just to check it out.
 
Jamz said:
Hint, if you have crappy version of the image, drag it onto google image search and search via that image, it may yield results...
Click to expand...

I recently learned about that and didn't think about it. Thanks. Great hint.
 
Ckorik said:
Ok I'm interested - do you plan on having any actual complied releases for this fork? All I can find on github is the source and honestly I don't want to download the JDK just to check it out.
Click to expand...

The url provided takes you to a compiled program, Worked for me, still working on the curve
 
ErinRigh said:
The url provided takes you to a compiled program, Worked for me, still working on the curve
Click to expand...

Believe it or not - that was helpful as the download link was only visible if you enabled javascript on the page - I don't by default and so I didn't even see that download button.

Thanks!
 
Ckorik said:
Believe it or not - that was helpful as the download link was only visible if you enabled javascript on the page - I don't by default and so I didn't even see that download button.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Glad you got it working. The token tool is brilliant
 
Quick FYI: Go to File -> Add Resource to Library and add your various folders and it creates basically just a folder view from that.

If you have any PDF's in those folder(s), it will show them as a "folder" and clicking on it will then extract the contents as "assets" to drag over to MT. I only cache the PDF results and delete the cache when you close MT as some PDF's could have many large images (like a map folio).

As a side note, if you have any Hero Lab portfolios in those folders, they will also show up as "folders" and clicking them will extract the characters as tokens for use. (here I keep a reference to the portfolio and store the statblocks/images for use in MT. My framework can auto-create pathfinder tokens using the XML data, but that is another post...)
 
Acenoid said:
You mean maptool can open pdfs on the fly and shows the images as tokens`?
Click to expand...

Specifically my Fork can, yes. maptool.nerps.net

It also reads Hero Lab portfolios as tokens as well.

Like ErinRigh said, it can take a few minutes on large PDF's. It's multi-threaded so it can do multiple pages at once, and the results are cached for that session.

It works great for those pesky interactive maps!
 
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