Best practices for saving high-res plots?
Description:
When creating visualizations for publication, presentations, or printing, it’s crucial to ensure your plots are not only informative but also visually crisp and professionally formatted. Poorly saved images (e.g., pixelated plots, cropped labels, or unreadable text) can ruin an otherwise excellent analysis. Saving high-quality plots is essential for publishing, sharing insights, or creating professional presentations. Whether you're preparing figures for a research paper or for a business dashboard, resolution and formatting matter.
● Use plt.savefig() with the dpi parameter — for print quality, set dpi=300 or higher.
● Always specify a file format (.png, .pdf, .svg, .eps) depending on your need:
-Use PNG for general use (web, screen).
-Use PDF/SVG for vector-based formats (print, scalable graphics).
● Include bbox_inches='tight' in savefig() to remove extra whitespace around your plot.
● Save plots with transparency if needed: transparent=True.
● For automated pipelines, generate file names dynamically to avoid overwrites and organize versions.
Code Explanation:
● dpi=300: Ensures high-quality resolution.
● bbox_inches='tight': Trims extra whitespace around the plot.
● plt.savefig(...): Saves the plot with all optimizations.
● plt.show(): Displays the figure.
Program:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
plt.plot([1, 2, 3], [3, 2, 1])
plt.title("High-Resolution Export")
plt.savefig("hi_res_plot.png", dpi=300, bbox_inches='tight')
plt.show()
Output:
