UtilibyWritten by the Utiliby editorial team · Last updated October 13, 2026 · Rules and formulas reviewed October 2026
What this free image extractor does
A PDF can hold dozens of pictures: product photos, logos, scanned pages, diagrams saved as bitmaps. Getting them out is surprisingly awkward. Taking screenshots loses resolution, and desktop editors that can export images are usually paid. This free online tool to extract images from a PDF reads the picture data stored inside the file, shows each image as a thumbnail, and lets you save it as PNG or JPG, one at a time or as a ZIP of everything you select.
It ignores tiny decorative images by default, removes exact duplicates such as a logo repeated on every page, and works completely in your browser, so your document is never uploaded. It is useful for designers who need a photo from a brochure, students who want a figure from a report, and anyone who needs to recover pictures from a PDF when the original files are gone.
How to extract images from a PDF
- Choose your PDF. Drop it on the box or click to browse. Scanning starts automatically.
- Wait for the thumbnails. A progress bar shows the page being scanned, and pictures appear as they are found.
- Adjust the minimum size. Increase it to hide icons and small decorations, or lower it to see everything.
- Choose PNG or JPG. PNG keeps every pixel; JPG makes smaller files.
- Select what you need. Tick or untick images, or use Select all and Select none.
- Save. Use a thumbnail's Save button for one image or Download selected as ZIP for several.
How image extraction works
Inside a PDF file, pictures are stored as image XObjects: a block of pixel data with a width, a height, a color space and usually a compression filter. A page refers to an image by name and says where to draw it and how large. This tool asks the PDF reader to walk through each page's drawing instructions, collects every image reference and decodes the pixels. The decoded picture is then drawn to a canvas and saved as PNG or JPG. Because the pixels come straight from the file, you get the stored resolution rather than the size the picture happens to be displayed at on the page.
Pictures with transparency are stored with a separate soft mask. The PDF reader combines the two so the result keeps its transparent areas in PNG. In JPG, transparent areas are filled with white. Stencil masks, which are one-color shapes used for scanned text, are not treated as pictures.
What can and cannot be extracted
| Content in the PDF | Extracted? | What to do instead |
|---|---|---|
| Photos (JPEG, PNG, JPEG 2000) | Yes | Use this tool |
| Scanned pages | Yes, one image per page | Use this tool or PDF to JPG |
| Logos stored as bitmaps | Yes | Lower the minimum size if small |
| Charts and logos drawn as vector shapes | No | Use PDF to JPG to render the page |
| Text | No | Use a PDF to text tool |
| Stencil masks | No | Render the page as an image |
Getting the best quality
Choose PNG when quality matters. It stores the exact pixels and keeps transparency. Choose JPG for photographs where a smaller file is more important, for example for email or a web page. If you need to make an image larger than its stored size, the result will look soft, because the PDF only holds the pixels it was given. If the image looks low resolution, the PDF was probably made from a downsized copy, and the original image file is the only place to find more detail.
Copyright and permission
Pictures in a PDF belong to whoever made them or licensed them. Being able to extract an image does not give you the right to reuse it. Use pictures from your own documents, from material with an open license that allows reuse, or with written permission. When you do reuse an image, keep any attribution that the license requires. If you are unsure, ask the owner or use an image that you know is free to use.
Common uses
- Recover photos from a brochure or catalog when the original files are lost.
- Pull a figure out of a report for a presentation, with permission and credit.
- Save the pages of a scanned PDF as separate pictures.
- Collect product images from a supplier price list.
- Check what images are inside a large PDF before compressing it.
Troubleshooting
- Nothing found. The PDF may contain only text and vector art. Use PDF to JPG instead.
- Too many tiny pictures. Raise the minimum size.
- Missing a small logo. Lower the minimum size to 1 and rescan.
- Wrong orientation. The page may rotate the picture when displaying it. Rotate the saved file.
- Slow or stuck. Very large PDFs need memory. Close other tabs or split the PDF first.
Image types you will find inside PDFs
PDF files store pictures in several ways, and knowing them helps you understand what you get back. JPEG (DCT) images are the most common for photographs and are already compressed. Flate-compressed images are lossless pixel data, often produced from PNG files, screenshots, charts exported as bitmaps and scanned black and white pages. JPEG 2000 images are used by some scanners and archival systems. Image masks are one-color stencils used for scanned text, and soft masks add transparency to another image. Some PDFs also contain very large background images split into many small tiles, which show up as lots of small pictures in the list.
This tool decodes the pixel data of the first group of types and saves them as PNG or JPG. If you see an unexpected number of small images, raise the minimum size to hide the tiles, or use the PDF to JPG tool to render the whole page as one picture instead.
Typical workflows
Recovering photos from a brochure or catalog: extract everything, untick the logos and decorations, and download the rest as a ZIP. Taking a chart out of a report: if the chart is a bitmap it will appear as a thumbnail; if it is drawn with vector shapes it will not, and you should render the page with PDF to JPG and crop the chart in an image editor. Saving scanned pages: a scan with one image per page comes out as one picture per page, ready to rename and share. Checking what makes a PDF large: the list shows the pixel size of each image, so you can see whether a few oversized photos are the cause and then use the Compress PDF tool.
Whichever workflow you use, check the licence of the pictures before you reuse them, keep the original PDF, and give credit where the source asks for it. For documents that you created yourself, extraction is a quick way to get your own images back when the original files have been lost.
If extracted pictures look rotated, mirrored or darker than in the PDF viewer, the page may apply a transformation or a color profile that is stored separately from the pixels. In that case render the page with PDF to JPG to see it exactly as displayed, or rotate and adjust the saved picture in an image editor.
Privacy and how it works
The PDF is read and decoded inside your browser. Nothing is uploaded or stored. The libraries that read the file are fetched from a public CDN the first time you use the tool, which is why you need to be online at that moment. Close the tab and the extracted images are gone from memory, so download what you need first.
Related free tools
Use these free online tools together with this one:
- Turn PDF pages into pictures with the PDF to JPG converter.
- Turn pictures into a PDF with the JPG to PDF converter.
- Pull the text out of a PDF with the PDF to text extractor.
- Reduce the size of pictures with the image compressor.
- Write a description for a picture with the alt text checker.
- Find the color codes in a picture with the image color picker.
Frequently asked questions
How do I extract images from a PDF for free?
Drop your PDF on the box above. The tool scans every page, shows each embedded picture as a thumbnail, and lets you save one image or download all selected images as a ZIP.
Are my PDF and images uploaded anywhere?
No. Everything happens inside your browser tab. The page loads open-source PDF libraries from a public CDN the first time, but your document is not sent to a server.
Is this the same as taking a screenshot of the page?
No. A screenshot gives you the page at screen resolution with text on top. This tool reads the image objects stored inside the PDF, so you get each picture on its own at its stored size.
Why are some images missing?
Only raster images embedded in the file can be extracted. Charts and logos drawn as vector graphics, text and some stencil masks are not pictures inside the file. To capture those, use the PDF to JPG tool to turn the whole page into an image.
Why did the tool skip small images?
Icons, bullets and one-pixel spacers are filtered out by the minimum size setting. Lower it to 1 to include everything, or raise it to focus on large photos.
What happens with duplicate images?
If the same image is used on many pages, such as a logo in every footer, it is saved once.
Should I choose PNG or JPG?
Choose PNG to keep the pixels exactly, which also keeps transparency. Choose JPG for smaller files from photos. Transparent areas turn white in JPG.
Is the extracted image the same quality as the original?
The pixel dimensions are the same as stored in the PDF. Because images are re-saved as PNG or JPG, file sizes will differ from the original embedded data, and JPG adds a little compression.
Does it work on scanned PDFs?
Yes. A scanned PDF is usually one full-page image per page, so each page comes out as one image. It does not perform OCR.
Can I extract images from a password-protected PDF?
Not directly. Remove the password in the program that created the PDF, or print it to a new PDF, and try again.
Is there a limit on pages or images?
The tool stops after 300 images to protect your browser. Very large files depend on your device memory.
Can I save only some of the images?
Yes. Untick the thumbnails you do not want, or use Select none and tick the ones you do want, then download the ZIP. Each thumbnail also has its own Save button.
Can I reuse images I extract?
Only if you have the right to. Images in PDFs are often protected by copyright or a license, so check before you publish or sell anything.
Why is the extracted image rotated or flipped?
PDF pages can display an image with a rotation or flip that is not stored in the image. The tool saves the stored pixels, so you may need to rotate the result.
Does it keep the metadata of the image?
No. EXIF and color profile data are not copied. The result is a plain PNG or JPG.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes, in a modern browser. Large PDFs may be slow on older phones.
What can I print or save?
Download selected as ZIP saves the images. Print / save list prints only the list of images with small previews, and Copy list copies the details as text.
Sources and further reading
- Adobe / ISO 32000-1:2008, Section 8.9 Images, for image XObjects, soft masks and image filters.
- Mozilla PDF.js documentation, for reading operator lists and image objects in the browser.
- Creative Commons, About CC licenses, for the conditions that apply when reusing images.
- US Copyright Office, Circular 1, Copyright Basics, for who owns a creative work.
Sources were consulted in October 2026. Standards and rules can change, so always check the official page for your situation.