Can I convert a pdf into an img?

[chaosisawayoflife]

I have a photo which is on a pdf as it was scanned and sent to me. Is it possible to convert it to a img file? I've had a google but I don't know enough about it and am scared to download anything to do it without someone telling me it's ok!

There's probably a very clever way to do this but the method I've used is to just zoom in so the image is a big as possible and then grab a screenshot.

What Operating System are you using?

screen shot will definitely work (note Mac OS screenshots default to PDF format though!!)

you could open the PDF in an image editor such as Photoshop, photopaint etc. or even Illustrator and resave as an image file (jpeg, tiff etc)

sorry that's not helpful if you don't have an image editor!

you could try importing into a photo editor such as iPhoto (on the mac) and see if that works?

Mac OS screenshots don't default to PDF, at least not on my version of the OS.

They do default to something slightly odd, PNG or TIF if I remember right but it's incredibly easy to open up the file using preview and then save it again as a JPG or a GIF.

oops you're right Badgerspaws, its png!

Come to think of it you can just open the PDF in Preview (if on a mac) and resave as a tiff etc from there.

(It will ask you to define the resolution so pick accordingly -- 72 dpi if for screen only etc.)

If Preview can save the PDF right out as an image then that's going to make my life so much easier

I often need to extract a photo/image from a PDF but I can then just crop down the image.

Thanks for that Nelvana

PNG and TIF are lossless image formats, and thus better then JPG and GIF, both of which can be lossy.

Don't get too worried, just take a copy of the file before editing it.

My copy of GIMP (which is a free image editor) will happily open pdf's and as far as I know that works on most Operating Systems.

Thanks all! I have Gimp and it worked perfectly, don't know why I didn't think of that.