About Extract Images from PDF
A PDF that shows a photo usually contains that photo as a separate object, stored once with its own pixel dimensions and then placed on the page at whatever size the layout calls for. This tool walks through every page, collects each raster image it finds and saves them one by one, so you get the pictures themselves rather than a snapshot of the whole page.
The document is opened by Mozilla’s pdf.js inside your browser. PDFs can store images in several encodings, among them ordinary JPEG, JPEG 2000, and the black-and-white JBIG2 and CCITT fax formats common in scanned paperwork. pdf.js decodes every one of them into plain pixels, which are then written out as PNG (the default, lossless) or JPG. Each file is named after the PDF, the page and the order in which images were found there, as in catalog-p4-2.png, and the whole set downloads as one ZIP.
Because pixels are decoded and saved again, you don’t receive the original compressed bytes. A PNG reproduces those pixels exactly but is often bigger than the embedded original; a JPG is compact but compresses the picture a second time.
How to use Extract Images from PDF
- Open the PDFDrop the PDF onto the tool or select it with the file picker. Locked with a password? Remove the lock in Unlock PDF before coming back here, which is possible only when the password is known to you.
- Pick PNG or JPG and the size filterPNG keeps the decoded pixels exactly and is selected to begin with. JPG suits big photographs when smaller files matter. Leave the small-image filter on to skip anything under 32 × 32 pixels, such as bullets, icons and decorative rules.
- Download the picturesRun the extraction and save the ZIP. Files follow page order, so report-p3-1.png is the first image found on page 3; a picture repeated on several pages is included once.
When people use it
Recovering photos when only the PDF survived
The designer has moved on and the original image folder with them, but the brochure PDF is still on the shared drive. Extraction returns the product and team photos at the resolution stored in the file.
Product shots from a supplier catalog
A wholesaler sends a 120-page catalog as a single PDF and no separate image files. Pulling the pictures out beats screenshotting page by page, and the size filter keeps tiny bullets out of the result.
Page scans out of a scanned document
Many scanner apps produce a PDF that simply wraps one image per page. Extracting hands back those scans at their original scanning resolution, without the resampling a page render adds, ready to straighten or clean up in a photo editor.
Extracting images vs. turning pages into images
| Question | Extract images (this tool) | Convert pages to images |
|---|---|---|
| What comes out | Each embedded picture as its own file | One image per page, showing everything on it |
| Text, vector charts, layout | Not included | Included, flattened into pixels |
| Resolution | Whatever the PDF stores for that picture | The DPI you choose |
| Where to do it | Right here | PDF to PNG or PDF to JPG |
Why a picture may be missing from the ZIP
- It was drawn, not embedded. Charts, diagrams and many logos are vector shapes rather than pixels, so there’s no image object to pull out. Render the page with PDF to PNG and crop it instead.
- It is actually text. Words are never images unless the document is a scan. For the wording itself, use PDF to Text.
- It fell under the size filter. Anything smaller than 32 × 32 pixels is skipped by default; untick the filter when you need small icons as well.
- It was a repeat. A letterhead logo on every page of a report is saved as one file, not one per page.
Resolution, quality and file size
Extracted pictures carry the pixel dimensions stored in the PDF, which can differ from how large they look on the page. A layout may squeeze a big photo into a small frame, in which case you get more detail than the page displays, and a photo the layout crops can come out whole, because the file often keeps the full image and hides the part outside the frame. A PDF exported for screens or already compressed may hold only a reduced copy, and the full-size original can’t be recovered from it.
Photos saved as PNG often grow well beyond their size inside the PDF, since a JPEG stream has been unpacked into lossless form. If file size matters more than exactness, switch the output to JPG. Black-and-white scans tend to stay reasonably small as PNG, because they consist mostly of flat black and white areas.
Limits and privacy
- Locked documents need Unlock PDF first.
- Long, image-heavy PDFs depend on your device’s memory; a computer gets through them more comfortably than a phone.
- Copyright still applies to whatever you extract.
You’ll need Safari 16.4 or later on Apple devices, or a recent Chrome, Edge or Firefox anywhere else. The PDF and every extracted image stay inside this tab and are never transmitted; the verification guide shows how to confirm it.