PDF to Image vs Extract Images from PDF

Choose this if

you want a picture of the page as it looks: text, layout and all

Choose this if

you want the photographs or diagrams that were placed into the document, without the page around them

How they compare

PDF to Image Converter compared with Extract Images from PDF, criterion by criterion
Criterion	PDF to Image Converter	Extract Images from PDF
What you get	One image per page, showing everything on it	The individual embedded images, with no page background or text
Resolution	Whatever you render at: the page is redrawn, so you choose the scale	Whatever was embedded, often far larger than the printed size suggests
Works on vector content	Yes. Charts and logos drawn as vectors render perfectlyBetter here	No. A vector drawing is instructions, not pixels. There is nothing to extract
Works on a scanned document	Yes, and gives you a clean page image	Yes: every page of a scan is one large embedded photograph
Output count for a 20-page report with 14 photos	20 images, one per page	14 images, one per photograph

Which is best for you

Render pages when you need the page itself

Putting a page into a slide deck, producing a thumbnail of a document, capturing a chart that was drawn rather than placed, or sharing a preview of something without sending the file. You are after what the page looks like, so rendering is the only approach that works, and it is the only one that captures vector graphics at all.

Extract when you want the original pictures back

Someone sent a report and you need the photographs for something else. Extraction recovers them at the resolution they were embedded at, which is frequently much higher than their printed size. A photograph shown two inches wide may be stored at two thousand pixels. Rendering the page would give you the printed size and nothing more.

The recommendation

Try extraction first when you want pictures rather than pages, because it recovers the originals at full resolution and rendering cannot. If it comes back empty, the graphics are vectors and rendering the page is your only option. The one case where the answer is obvious in advance: a scanned document, where every page is a single embedded photograph and either tool gives you effectively the same thing.

Frequently asked questions

Why did extraction find nothing in a PDF full of charts?

Because the charts are vector drawings, lines and curves stored as instructions rather than pixels. There is no image object to recover. Rendering the page is the only way to get a picture of a vector graphic.

Which gives better quality?

Extraction, when it works, because it returns the original image unaltered. Rendering redraws the page at a resolution you choose, so quality depends on that setting and on how the image was scaled into the layout.