MATLAB: Figures displaying differently in and out of MATLAB

Question

My figures are displaying differently in and out of MATLAB. I saved an image as an uncompressed TIF: –

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/11341635/Ass1Q2b.tif

Here's a screenshot of it in MATLAB: – https://dl.dropbox.com/u/11341635/Screen%20shot%202012-11-04%20at%2012.14.25.png

and a screenshot after I imported it into Mathematica (shown at actual size): – https://dl.dropbox.com/u/11341635/Screen%20shot%202012-11-04%20at%2012.14.40.png

and a screenshot of the PDF generated from Mathematica by printing to PDF: – https://dl.dropbox.com/u/11341635/Screen%20shot%202012-11-04%20at%2012.14.46.png

a screen shot of the actual tif after it was opened in preview is here: – https://dl.dropbox.com/u/11341635/Screen%20shot%202012-11-04%20at%2012.28.10.png

I've found that I have to make the line thickness really fat so that they're properly visible after they're saved as whatever file type (jpeg, png, tif, uncompressed tif).

Does anyone have any advice or tips on getting there figures to look good i.e. no blurring or pixelation.

[EDITED, Jan, converted URLs to links]

Answer 1

In order to preserve appearance, you could use a vector graphics format, such as .svg or .eps, instead of .png which is a bitmap.

Also make sure you are using the right renderer if you go the vector graphics route (look at "Selecting a renderer" from the documentation). You should use Painters for vector formats.

How your bitmap looks like depends on a lot of things, the renderer, the resolution, etc... It can be a pain to deal with.