matlab imwrite plot,Matlab imwrite() quality

I'm very new to Matlab, though I know a few other programming languages, so please forgive me if this is something simple. I have not been able to find any answers to this, either on StackOverflow or elsewhere.

I produce a figure using the following code: figure(6),imageplot(P); drawnow;

Which looks like this:

I then save this image to my computer using the following commands: imwrite(P, 'images/plot.png');

And the resulting image is tiny, and missing some of the color information:

If, however, I utilize the save function in the open figure (image #1) and save it manually, I get exactly what I want, which is that exact image stored on my computer.

How would I program that? I assumed that imwrite() would just write the image directly, but apparently I'm doing something wrong. Any advice? Perhaps it has something to do with the imageplot command? I cannot seem to get that to work in imwrite.

Update: Based on the comments below, I have begun using "imresize" with the "nearest" option. This scales the image properly, but the resulting image is still curiously darker (and therefore has less information) than if I hit the "save" button in the figure.

Image saved from figure:

Image using "imresize" with "nearest" option: