uikit - How to capture UIView to UIImage without loss of quality on retina display

Question

My code works fine for normal devices but creates blurry images on retina devices.

Does anybody know a solution for my issue?

+ (UIImage *) imageWithView:(UIView *)view
{
    UIGraphicsBeginImageContext(view.bounds.size);
    [view.layer renderInContext:UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext()];

    UIImage * img = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext();

    UIGraphicsEndImageContext();

    return img;
}

Answer 1

Switch from use of UIGraphicsBeginImageContext to UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions (as documented on this page). Pass 0.0 for scale (the third argument) and you'll get a context with a scale factor equal to that of the screen.

UIGraphicsBeginImageContext uses a fixed scale factor of 1.0, so you're actually getting exactly the same image on an iPhone 4 as on the other iPhones. I'll bet either the iPhone 4 is applying a filter when you implicitly scale it up or just your brain is picking up on it being less sharp than everything around it.

So, I guess:

#import <QuartzCore/QuartzCore.h>

+ (UIImage *)imageWithView:(UIView *)view
{
    UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(view.bounds.size, view.opaque, 0.0);
    [view.layer renderInContext:UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext()];

    UIImage * img = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext();

    UIGraphicsEndImageContext();

    return img;
}

And in Swift 4:

func image(with view: UIView) -> UIImage? {
    UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(view.bounds.size, view.isOpaque, 0.0)
    defer { UIGraphicsEndImageContext() }
    if let context = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext() {
        view.layer.render(in: context)
        let image = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext()
        return image
    }
    return nil
}