How to create a photographic PDF at minimal bandwidth

[leehughes]

Hi,

I'm off to travel for about 3 years soon and I will be making photographic PDF's which I am letting people download for free.

I need to find a way though to reduce the size of the PDF as much as possible. I'm using photoshop's save for the web feature to reduce the image size and Apple's Pages to make the photographic e-books. There is also the feature from using the preview on the mac where it compresses the PDFs. Only problem with this is that all the images lose all their quality.

Is there anything I can do that will reduce the file size as much as possible and keep the photos at a decent standard?

Thanks

[sk66]

You could try reducing the number of colors to "web" if they are strictly for computer use.

[leehughes]

yes no printing will be involved. this is within Photoshop?

[sk66]

Originally Posted by leehughes

yes no printing will be involved. this is within Photoshop?

Yes, select image> mode> indexed...there are settings there for "web", "system"(mac/windows), etc..play with those and see if you can find a suitable option.

Additionally, you can always reduce the output quality setting for Jpegs to around 80% with negligible impact on display.

[Photologyst]

I use InDesign to create such PDFs for the printers.

However, Blurb (to name one book publisher) has instructions: Find Answers