When you need the picture, not the page
You get a brochure, report, or catalog as a PDF, and all you want is the photo. Maybe a logo to reuse, a product photo for an online shop, or a chart for a presentation. A screenshot makes the picture blurry and cropped. A better way is to pull the original image straight out of the PDF, at the same size it was placed.
What counts as an image in a PDF
Inside a PDF, photos and pictures are stored as separate objects, apart from the text. That is why they can be taken out whole. But not everything that looks like a picture on the page really is one.
- Embedded images are photos and other bitmap pictures. These can be extracted.
- Vector graphics are lines, shapes, and charts drawn with formulas. Many logos and diagrams are made this way. They are not images, so they are not extracted.
- Scanned pages are usually one big image per page. If you extract a scanned PDF, you get one image for each page.
How to extract images with Velfile
Use Extract PDF Images.
- Open Extract PDF Images and choose your PDF. The limit is 100 MB.
- Leave Pages to scan empty for the whole file, or type a range like 1-3, 5.
- Pick an Image format: JPG for smaller files, or PNG for full quality.
- Leave Small images on its default so icons and decorative lines are not picked up.
- Press Extract images, then download them one by one or all together as a ZIP.
It all runs in your browser, on your own device. The PDF is not uploaded to a server. In one run, the tool scans up to 100 pages and extracts up to 200 images. An image that repeats on many pages is extracted only once.
JPG or PNG?
- JPG suits photos. Files are much smaller, and the difference in quality is barely visible. Transparent images get a white background.
- PNG suits logos, charts, screenshots, or anything that needs a transparent background. Quality is full, but a photo can end up several times larger.
If the result is empty
If the tool says it found no images, there are three likely reasons.
- The PDF only contains text and vector graphics. There are no embedded images to take out. To save the pages as pictures, use PDF to JPG.
- The images are too small. Change Small images to Keep all images and try again.
- The PDF is locked with a password. A PDF like that can't be read, so remove the password first.
Extract images or PDF to JPG?
These two tools are easy to mix up. Extract Images pulls out the pictures inside the PDF, each at its original size. PDF to JPG takes a picture of the whole page, text and layout included. If you need one photo from a brochure, use Extract Images. If you need the page to look exactly as it does, use PDF to JPG.
A note on copyright
Being able to extract an image does not mean you may use it. Photos in brochures, reports, and books are usually protected by copyright. Use images that are yours, that you have permission for, or that carry a free license.
What to do next
Once you have the images, shrink them with Compress Image before uploading them to a site or sending them by email. If you want to put them back together as one PDF, use JPG to PDF.
Last updated: October 24, 2026