I've been running into an issue with PDF's exporting at large file sizes. This became apparent to me after the 2022 update. Here is an example of how this occurs and disrupts my workflow.

I recently sent a exported a PDF from an indd project that linked to 13 PSD's. The exported PDF file size came to relatively manageable 10 MBs.

I later updated the same project, now including 20 linked PSD's. This PDF export came to 184 MBs!

When I've run into this in the past, I've had to either convert the PSD's to JPG's, or run some kind of other optimization out of Acrobat. This is an OK workaround when in a crunch, but I prefer to keep the workflow of source images to PSD's, intact. The downside to running optimization out of acrobat is noticeable loss in image quality, especially in the red channel of JPG's. In the above example, running optimization out of Acrobat reduced the PDF from 184 MBs to 4 MBs, with some, but not too terrible, loss in image quality.

It's highly likely that this jump in export size is due to the PSD's. My research has lead me to believe this has something to do with meta data carried over in the PSD's, but it still seems like an extreme shift in export size.

Any thoughts on what the cause of this extreme file size could be? Can export to PDF image options be refined to mitigate this? Like enhanced image flattening, conversion, or meta data remove (if this is indeed the source of the issue). Are there any options that exist that I'm missing? Though, the variable here seems to be the PSD's themselves.

I've included systems specs, and PDF export settings as attachments for reference, below.

System Specs:
Windows 10 Pro 20H2
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950x 16-Core 3.5 GHz
128 GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti