# Getting high-resolution brain plot exports for publication figures

**URL:** <https://mne.discourse.group/t/getting-high-resolution-brain-plot-exports-for-publication-figures/11969>\
**Category:** Support & Discussions\
**Tags:** visualization\
**Created:** [October 6, 2026, 12:11pm UTC](https://mne.discourse.group/t/getting-high-resolution-brain-plot-exports-for-publication-figures/11969 "2026-10-06T12:11:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nissauce](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/mne.discourse.group/nissauce/32/3052_2.png) [@nissauce](https://mne.discourse.group/u/nissauce)\
**Post date:** [October 6, 2026, 12:11pm UTC](https://mne.discourse.group/t/getting-high-resolution-brain-plot-exports-for-publication-figures/11969/1 "2026-10-06T12:11:38Z")

</div>

Hi!

I’m exporting brain plots for figures following [this tutorial](https://mne.tools/stable/auto_tutorials/visualization/10_publication_figure.html) and I’m running into a resolution problem. The screenshot-based export produces raster images, so when I assemble the final figure in a vector format (e.g. PDF) the brain plots come out blurry.

My figure creation pipeline is : (1) run analyses & save figure as .pdf with python (2) arrange figures in Inkscape or Illustrator (3) export final figures as .pdf.

Until step 2, the brain plots are fine but they become blurry after the final export. I tried the same logic with Powerpoint and got the same result.

What do you use to get high-quality, publication-ready brain renderings? Ideally something that either exports vector graphics or lets me render at a much higher resolution.

Thanks!

MNE version: 1.11.0

operating system: macOS 15.6

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![cbrnr](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/mne.discourse.group/cbrnr/32/1409_2.png) [@cbrnr](https://mne.discourse.group/u/cbrnr)\
**Post date:** [October 7, 2026, 5:30am UTC](https://mne.discourse.group/t/getting-high-resolution-brain-plot-exports-for-publication-figures/11969/2 "2026-10-07T05:30:42Z")

</div>

AFAIK you cannot export a brain plot as a vector image, but you should be able to bump the resolution of the rasterized PNG. Can you try setting the `size` argument in `stc.plot()` to something higher like `(2400, 1200)`? In addition, if you want a transparent background, you can then try to take the screenshot with `brain.screenshot(mode="rgba")`. I haven’t tried any of this, so let me know how it goes.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![larsoner](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/mne.discourse.group/larsoner/32/3_2.png) [@larsoner](https://mne.discourse.group/u/larsoner)\
**Post date:** [October 7, 2026, 5:12pm UTC](https://mne.discourse.group/t/getting-high-resolution-brain-plot-exports-for-publication-figures/11969/3 "2026-10-07T17:12:10Z")

</div>

Yeah there won’t be vector support… but PyVista (which is the backend for our plotting) supports rendering at larger sizes, we “just” don’t expose it yet. I’ve created [Add support for saving larger-resolution images · Issue #14385 · mne-tools/mne-python · GitHub](https://github.com/mne-tools/mne-python/issues/14385) to track the issue

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nissauce](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/mne.discourse.group/nissauce/32/3052_2.png) [@nissauce](https://mne.discourse.group/u/nissauce)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2026, 11:56am UTC](https://mne.discourse.group/t/getting-high-resolution-brain-plot-exports-for-publication-figures/11969/4 "2026-10-12T11:56:10Z")

</div>

Hi Clemens,

Thanks for the suggestions! Increasing the size indeed made the plots sharper, but it didn’t help with the export issue in the graphics editor.

The problem turned out to be some automatic down-sampling when exporting the figure through Export Selection / Export Asset.

In Illustrator, using File → Save As → PDF (with Compression set to Do Not Downsample) preserved the full resolution of the brain plots.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/free1/uploads/mne/original/1X/85cc6bd2b69cb698a166dc6d880fb550510d0144.jpeg) [@system](https://mne.discourse.group/u/system)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2026, 11:56am UTC](https://mne.discourse.group/t/getting-high-resolution-brain-plot-exports-for-publication-figures/11969/5 "2026-10-19T11:56:18Z")

</div>

This topic was automatically closed 7 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.