I'm trying to figure out the best way to get a lot of images into a publisher file for Amazon KDP. Getting 550 8.25x11 images into a 550 page document and getting under the 650mb file limit is tricky, and I'm not sure exactly how Publisher is working with my images. They are 2550x3375 jpegs (the math I've arrived at when adding a 0.125" bleed at 300dpi), and are ~550mb in total after exporting all 550 of them from DxO. When running them through Publisher, the final PDF size winds up being anywhere from 5GB down, depending on various settings, none of which make a lot of sense to me at the moment.
I guess my first actionable question is this: is there some combination of export/settings in Publisher where I can simply export the jpegs from DxO PhotoLab precisely how I want them, and for the resulting Publisher PDF file size to remain whatever the sum total of the jpegs is? (Or as close as possible, accounting for some increase in size for PDF metadata, etc...) I'm really just trying to figure out a workflow where I can do most of the editing/filesize work outside of publisher, in terms of image-tweaking, and to cut out Publisher's jpeg compression. In short, I don't know where the file bloat is coming from, and I don't understand when or how 500mb of jpegs becomes 5GB of PDF.
I hope this is making sense. I've been trying to get to the bottom of this for five days and my head is a bit scrambled.
Thanks in advance for any help or experience you might be able to bring to this.