Generally I include images in my latex document by the command
\includegraphics[scale=0.5]{image.png}
However, after doing pdflatex
the image quality is always very poor in the resulting pdf file. I think it is probably due to the scaling I do. I have also tried pdf, ps and eps images but they also suffer the same problems. I generally use gnuplot or matplotlib to generate the graphs.
What format should I store the images so that when I scale them to be put in the latex document, they maitain their quality? What are the macros that I should use? As of now I only use
\usepackage{graphics}
Best Answer
For diagrams you will get the best results when using vector graphics. Both gnuplot and matplotlib can export to vector graphics; file formats for vector graphics are e.g. eps or pdf or svg (there are many more).
As you are using pdfLaTeX, you should choose pdf as output format, because it will be easy to include in your document using the
graphicx
package and the\includegraphics{}
command. To show you how to do it, I went to the matplotlib gallery and downloaded one of the many examples, saving it asmyplot.pdf
. The following code gives me absolutely satisfying quality.PS: As discussed here, jpg is good for photos, png is good for e.g. screenshots.