Design Portfolios: HIGH Quality Exports with Small File Sizes

Your portfolio might be getting stopped before reaching companies! Often, companies restrict the sizes of files they can receive in emails, so large portfolios won't reach them.
Use these techniques to keep your PDF file sizes down, and reach more companies!

[@FredWhitten]

Another really important thing to take into consideration is whether your images are JPEG or PNG (or others). PNG images can be scaled down but can't be compressed. Any images which don't need alpha transparency should be converted to JPEGs first so that they can be both scaled and compressed when you export. I've seen this catch many people out.

[@SamDoesDesign]

That’s a great point! I don’t often work with PNGs so this slipped my mind

[@CatraValentine]

But wait... InDesign in it's compression setting let's you choose which method to use. So if you choose JPEG (which is the default as well) you can throw in any image format ID can handle and the export will munch through them and spill out JPEG's in your PDF.
Isn't this just some oldschool advice, back in the day when ID wasn't as good in handling different image formats?
I recently was tasked with producing a HQ pdf at a low file size and it seemed to make no difference (size & quality wise) if I converted the images to JPG beforehand, or threw in some PNG.
// and an addition: if your PDF/portfolio will be viewed solely on screen than PPI or DPI has no effect on the image quality whatsoever. The 72dpi is stuff from the 80's and only effects PRINTS anyways.
a 1920x1080 image will appear on _ANY_ screen as 1920x1080, regardless what it's PPI/DPI setting is, _ONLY_ when it's printed the size will vary (the higher the DPI the smaller the image because more dots per inch)!

[@aldemar9830]

When using PDF, can these also be compressed ?

[@RobWaterman]

I came here because of this PNG issue. Thank you

[@FluenceEnergy]

@@SamDoesDesign It would be so great to have a tutorial on exporting to PNG/JPG -- I use InDesign for web ads and social share images, and I have the hardest time figuring out how to export and have a good quality image that isnt too big. There aren't a lot of resources on this either. Help would be greatly appreciated!

[@peanutz23]

I was going to sell my soul to reduce my file size...but now that I've seen this I don't have to! Thank you!

[@laparmoron]

Dammit, I've already sold mine

[@DeyaSmith]

😂😂😂😂😂

[@ghazalslm8233]

🤣🤣🤣

[@leothaking3007]

lapar_minded 😂😂

[@reviveproject]

:D same

[@Eternaloptimist5141]

Sam, you simply gave me the solution to one of the biggest problems of my life ! Thank you so much brother, God bless you !

[@NaomiBenatar]

Thank you so so so so so so so so much! You are literally such a hero for making this video. Life altering! THANK YOU SO MUCH!

[@emmymcgowan1781]

That was soooo helpful! Thank you! I feel confident that my online portfolio will look good for my client!

[@mollybauerdowling3493]

Thank you, this was so helpful. It is often little things like this that can catch you out.

[@SamDoesDesign]

I'm so glad I could help!

[@spiltstudios]

Loved this video! Thank you so much for the help x

[@VaishaliPancholi-qm5rr]

Such a great video with helpful tips. Thank you for explaining each individual aspect

[@tonymercado12]

This video is so helpful, and clear to understand. Thanks a lot!!!

[@SamDoesDesign]

Thank you! I’m so glad I could help

[@manojmistry8302]

Great tips Sam! I've always been frustrated by compromising on imagine quality to get a small file size. Thanx so much :)

[@SamDoesDesign]

You are so welcome!

[@akshay_creates]

Hey thank you so much Sam! Couldn't have found this video at a better time, working on my portfolio to send out and last I checked it was at 50 mb and I'd have to embarrassingly send over a G Drive link :P But surely this should streamline things! Great informative content you have going on!

[@samuelelijas9002]

Excellent video, great tutorial! Well done!!

[@paulmolina3335]

OMG Thank you so much! It worked excellently *is relieved for Grad application portfolios*

[@francescak9576]

I can’t explain how happy am since finding this video!!

[@SamDoesDesign]

I’m so glad I could help!

[@sjessick]

Thank you so much for this!! I'm currently applying for jobs and completely blanked on how to make my portfolio smaller. Nice, easy-to-follow, tutorial 👍

[@SamDoesDesign]

Thank you! Good luck with the job search!

[@jessicahearne]

Yesss this is so useful! I’m definitely going to use these tips to keep my portfolio email-able 💌

[@SamDoesDesign]

I’m so glad I could help!

[@allisonbaker3385]

I never ever comment on youtube videos but thank you so much! This saved me

[@ritikkhare465]

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! THIS WAS VERY HELPFUL

[@zsteele11]

You are so helpful! Thank you so much

[@KaraKellerDesigns]

This helped me so much, thanks Sam!

[@BenWindsorTV2]

Thanks so much for this, really helped with a job application I just put in :) !!

[@tsepangmalephane5427]

Than ly ou so much man.
This is exactly what I was looking for.

[@htutkhaungmyat]

Thank you very much! It was very helpful.

[@hayaalshahel]

very helpful and pedagogical! thanx!

[@keziafrederick8262]

I must say a fantastic video!! I had a portfolio which was 40mb and was stressing, this is honestly such a great video! Helped so much thanks! It’s now 4.7mb

[@jamesstevenson9692]

Great video. You've saved me hours of agony. Thank you.

[@JonathanPryorAndrew]

Thanks! This was super helpful.

[@alexandrebouffard1267]

This is excellent thank you so much

[@mwiyeriaesther2156]

This was really helpful... Thanks!

[@arashi1ryoma1]

This was super helpful thank you!

[@katiagalanteart]

Thank you so much for this tutorial I have learned so much! I'm not quite ready to finalize my portfolio yet but I was already wondering how on hearth I could send such a big file to art directors, this video solves that problem!!

[@SamDoesDesign]

Glad it was helpful! Good luck!

[@valentinakurtz2682]

great, thank you! very clear

[@reneestrada1148]

Super useful! Thanks Sam. 🍻

[@alumelike9964]

Thank you so much!!! You're save my life.

[@emrhneren]

Super helpful, thank you!

[@MariaEduarda-ng8rn]

Thank you so much for this video!!!!

[@susansakka4874]

Brilliant! Thank you so much!

[@SamDoesDesign]

I’m so glad I could help!

[@letmetryit]

Thank you! You really helped me!

[@JasonBelcik]

Thank you, you're awesome!

[@MariCatherinee]

This is so helpful for my architecture portfolio! thankss

[@SamDoesDesign]

I’m so glad I could help!

[@sashasomczynska2263]

Thank you for that it helped just have to tweak some settings

[@fernandocespedes2637]

Thank you! This helped me a lot! 😀

[@SamDoesDesign]

I'm so glad I could help!

[@delia3644]

Cool, thank you so much!

[@juliadrolerie]

Thank you so much!

[@gajanan_bhamare]

Helpful tutorial thanks🤟🏽

[@tiker135]

Great video 🙌🏻 Thanks man!

[@SamDoesDesign]

Glad I could help!

[@wittyfleek3323]

This is awesome! These are type of video i like watching

[@SamDoesDesign]

Thank you! I’m glad I could help

[@kaizumielric1883]

THANK YOU SO MUCH!! IT REALLY HELPFUL!!

[@SamDoesDesign]

I’m glad I could help!

[@zaychikhead]

You're spectacular at explaining. Please continue to do more Indesign videos! This was helpful. I would like to know how you would configure the settings for a file that is an Interactive PDF, with the same goals as you had here. So, high quality but small file size. Thank you so much!

[@SamDoesDesign]

Thank you so much! I can look into interactive PDFs but I do know that they’re usually larger than PDFs for print

[@johnmorton4795]

You've literally saved my life thanks

[@SamDoesDesign]

I’m glad I could help!

[@cassidystraub4509]

Life Saver 🙏 thank you

[@Pandachii]

Thanks a lot for sharing! 😁

[@keerthanapriyap8914]

Thanks bro, you are the best!!!😍

[@hebalatief9097]

Thank you sooooo much Sam :)

[@mitchlowbridge3979]

Brilliant tips sam!

[@SamDoesDesign]

I’m so glad I could help!

[@whatevor]

Thank you!

[@laurachva]

thank you so much!

[@lahmamisoufiane7974]

Thanks man it was great video

[@shafarahmanifaza]

You just saved my life!😭 thank you so much!!

[@SamDoesDesign]

I’m glad I could help!

[@mafaldamagro7839]

SAMEEEEE 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼 THANKS A LOT!

[@anemix3000]

Hey Sam! At what resolution do you usually render at for a large image?? (like the size of the polaroid image) Thanks!

[@just_lusungu75]

Thanks for this it has helped

[@eacalderona]

Thank you!!!!!

[@adrianparafianowicz802]

Hey, thank you for an informative video. Is there a way to set a fixed quality for some images before exporting if their quality tend to be way off compared to others once exported?

[@christinaceniceros5159]

Thank you so much Sam for this video! I do have a question tho. I followed the steps and made sure that my settings were the same as yours, but my export continues to have a cut on certain pages with white space at the left margin of the page, and I wanted to ask how I can avoid or correct my file to make sure that these pages are full bleed? The dimensions of my portfolio are 16.5" X 11.7

[@MuhammadAldienPranata]

YOU SAVED MY LIFE! THANK YOU!
WORKS ON ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR CC 2019

[@SamDoesDesign]

I’m so glad I could help!

[@user-tr5rh1nq5p]

유용한 정보 감사합니다!! ☺️

[@samehfathyabdullahzayed9764]

very useful, Thank you

[@SamDoesDesign]

Thank you so much! I’m glad I could help

[@chinabondi2643]

Thanks!!!

[@kristinamasyte2966]

thanks!

[@kmadkma]

tHANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!

[@crearam]

Dear sir, thanks for the tutorial which is very good. I have a suggestion. 1. While saving the native .tiff images in photoshop, first try to flatten the layers where tranperacy is not intented. 2. Go for LZW compression in PS. 3. In indesign export section opt for pdfx1a-2001 which would further reduce file size with quality and color intact. Its just my opinion. Ramalingam.

[@SamDoesDesign]

Thanks for the tips!

[@pepejrrz4566]

gracias

[@shaktivelio3553]

Hey Sam! Thanks for your video it is great! I wanted to ask something too tho I am an architect and when I export a pdf plan to my portfolio it becomes super super slow because of the amount of detail I think because the file is 1.8MB max, but I have several images this size and nothing happens. I do not know what is wrong! if you have some kind of answer I would appreciate it!

[@PrinceWesterburg]

As Britain's only Corel Draw user I'm stuck trying to use PDF creation software. Anyone know of a good one?

[@utkarshmahajan4153]

Thanks. Most critical thing to do.
And I think you should properly monetize your videos. Because this video is going to be ....Most viewed video for your channel. 😊👍👍

[@SamDoesDesign]

I hope this video is helpful for everyone!

[@navaneethakrishnan6274]

hey whats the standard resolution for industrial design portfolio like height and width and dpi
plz help me out

[@Krupaux]

thanks

[@zachariahjoy1513]

super helpful

[@MLSSmithy]

Is it possible you could do a video on making a portfolio on InDesign software?

[@SamDoesDesign]

Great idea for an episode!

[@JaiSequoia]

Great visual explanation thank you. I wonder if you realize that keeping your files on your desktop is using up a lot of your computer’s resources? Best to use finder with fav folders on the side and keep things off your desktop. Hope that’s helpful for someone.
One question… I haven’t used InDesign for a while (cc) and I had made an illustration in illustrator, the file was cymk, I copied and pasted the graphic into InDesign and it converted it to rgb. Anyway idea why this would happen?

[@milalud0]

I want to ask,to be sure you use photos saved in photoshop in jpg format for web, or jpg format with 2000px resolution or pdf format?

[@jeremy112898]

Hache R team... got it! lol Thanks for the video!

[@aliirfan458]

amazing video thanks a lot boss

[@SamDoesDesign]

Glad it helped!

[@reggyandika9361]

Thanks bro

[@fiyinolayide3360]

how do you compress an interactice pdf curreltny 113mb need to get to 32mb

[@tsepangmalephane5427]

Do you have videos or a video about the image format most suitable for uploading to one's websites by any chance..?

[@umbertochiuini7991]

Can I ask you which font did you use? I like it

[@pulemulenga731]

thankyou

[@sheezaayub]

Impressed

[@jackierosales3697]

Hi, quick question does it affect if you have pdfs rather than jpgs because I have tried this however the size of my portfolio doesn't go down.

[@braziliandesigner]

Does it also work on Photoshop? I think InDesign may keep text output vectorial.

[@ajeesh3485]

which is the best tool to create portfolio? indesign or figma?

[@0h0h0h0]

Help please! I have a lot of vector images in my portfolio and I can't get it down to less than 24MB (I started at 50MB lol) with this method. Any tips? I already reduced the individual files that are in the InDesign file. However, it still won't work. Thanks in advance!

[@lubainabhori8651]

What should be the max number set on the pixels to compress? I went on to 100 yet I need to compress more.

[@hakimbrahimi1015]

Hi , how do I set up adobe acrobat PDF compressor for Pages app?
thank you

[@devgatling]

thank you sir

[@SamDoesDesign]

You’re welcome!

[@johnson0nline]

I still opt for interactive pdf... it retains the RGB values for on screen viewing but you can still export images at high resolution (I usually keep max quality and drop the resolution to 144-200 ppi). Something to take into consideration is the source image (aka if your render is large, your pres is usually large too)

[@SamDoesDesign]

Great point! Thanks for sharing

[@suhasprasad5071]

Hey could you tell me what font have you used in the video :)

[@shynnsup8383]

Hi Sam! Thank you!
What about when you vectorial PDFs inside Indesign instead of jpgs? Should these be converted to jpg first?

[@JaiSequoia]

I’d love to know the answer to this too.

[@ahmedmhassan6220]

you saved my life