Adobe Acrobat & Photoshop Tutorial

Turn your Photoshop projects into PDF documents and add a variety of presentation and security settings in Acrobat.

Adobe Photoshop is widely considered to be one of the most useful and powerful graphics-editing programs available. Acrobat, another Adobe program, was a pioneer in using and creating the widely-used PDF file format and is still among the standards of printing and PDF presentations. Adobe has made the process of integrating the programs simple and convenient with the Photoshop PDF format, which allows you to optimize your Photoshop files for use in Acrobat, making them easy to post on the Web, print or share with others who do not have Photoshop.

Things You'll Need

• Computer
• Adobe Photoshop software
• Adobe Acrobat software

Instructions

1. Open Photoshop and open a new or existing document in Photoshop from the "File" menu.

2. Add any desired images, text, effects, etc. to your Photoshop composition and select "File > Save As." Set the "Format" drop-down menu to "Photoshop PDF," which is the format you want to use in order to integrate Photoshop with Acrobat and all of its features. Enter a name and save location where indicated and make sure the "Layers" and "Embed Color Profile" boxes are checked. Click "Save."

3. Click "OK" in the dialog box alerting you that your settings can be overridden in the "Save Adobe PDF" dialog. Set your desired PDF settings in the resulting "Save Adobe PDF" dialog box. You can set the Acrobat version compatibility and print quality settings from the "General" section, and you can add PDF security settings such as password protection right in Photoshop in the "Security" section. You can also set compression and color settings from this dialog box. Make sure the "View PDF after Saving" box is checked in the "General" section, which will automatically launch Acrobat once your save is completed. Click "Save PDF" when you have adjusted your settings as preferred.

4. Switch over to Acrobat, which will have launched and opened your newly saved Photoshop PDF. Make sure your color settings and image quality meet your standards.

5. Make any desired PDF adjustments to your document. Acrobat allows you to refine or add security settings to the document, even if you already did this in Photoshop. You can merge your document with others to create a PDF portfolio or add forms and text entry fields. You can also add multimedia components such as Flash video or audio components. Select "File > Save" from the application menu once you have made your desired additions and adjustments.

Tips & Warnings

• If you will be sending your PDF to print, make sure you consult with your printer about his or her preferred compatibility settings so you can deliver an optimized PDF.

References

• Adobe Photoshop: Save a file in Photoshop PDF format
• Designorati: Desktop Publishing With Photoshop PDF
• Graphics.com: Working with Adobe Acrobat and Photoshop