How come I didn’t notice this sooner?

You can extract images, as is, directly from a PDF file, in Photoshop. I knew it had the ability to open a PDF and turn into a rasterized image, and that has been helpful from time to time.

But, try this:

1. In Photoshop, Go to File->Open, and select a PDF with images in it.
2. You should get an “Import PDF” dialog box, with options for how to crop the page, resolution, and so on.
3. In the upper left, you should see radio buttons to select pages or … HMMMMMM … images. Choose images instead of pages, and suddenly your cropping and sizing options are grayed out. But you will see a list of all the images embedded in the PDF:
   

Isn’t that hunky-dory?

Pick an image from the list, and press ‘OK’. You will open up the actual image embedded in the PDF. This is why the options are all grayed-out—you aren’t changing anything about the image.

Now you can work your evil ways on that l’il image. Oh no, don’t thank me.