As you know, I have recently made some changes to my fs to make it better for screenshots but instead of being able to go out there and take a bunch of shots I barely even fly anymore because it's so laggy. I believe this is due to my high resolutions I have it set on in order for the shots to look good but now I can't even get out there get my shots because of this lag. I want to keep my high settings but I also want to be able to fly with them and take screenshots with them. Do you have any suggestions?

You can always set it to low quality, take a flight, pause when you want to take a screenshot, and then push the setting to max right before you take the shot.  It's a little extra work, but you get the best of both worlds.

You need to get your computer cleaned up properly so it's giving the best performance it can.
Still stuttering and lagging?
If you're flying to take screenshots, rather than fly, think about each shot carefully. If you're at an airport you need high ai, but you can turn down mesh detail perhaps. When flying in the city (or anywhere I suppose), unless you are going to show the airport, turn ai down to 0. Set your visibility to 20 or 30 km only for that haze effect and less stuff to render. Etc... I always used to fly on low detail and then pump up the weather, complexity, resolution when I found a good spot and wait for it to settle down. This may be your last resort.....

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This made it run faster. Thanks a lot. I will PM you if I have any more problems.

Does anyone know if those tweaks will help with fsx as well as it does with fs2004.  I know, stupid question.

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Ah, cripe! Nooooo!

There are two very different audiences in the FS community - those who fly to fly, and those who fly to create art (be it video or screenshots).

Yeah, of course you can enjoy both.  I know I do!  But unless you have a supercomputer or really tweak the heck out of things, you're probably not going to be able to EXCEL at either.

Taking shots "on the fly" is actually a lot more work than setting up each shot very specifically.  Think about it like photography - how many candid shots are you going to have to take to get that one good shot?  Whereas in a studio, with everything very deliberately controlled, you're going to waste a lot less film!

So max out those sliders, establish the shot you want to take, and take it.  Then back things down a bit, and off you go!  Best of both worlds!

I just simply take down the resolution to 800 x 600 *shudders* when I wanna do some fun flying.. then back to 1280 x 1024 x 32 for Screenshots