Reflection or fluorescence microscopy method for increasing the resolution of a laser scanning microscope when detecting an illuminated sample, wherein - an illumination pattern is produced on the sample and - the illuminated sample is imaged by the microscope on a detector device, - the illumination pattern comprises at least one diffraction-limited point and is repeatedly displaced relative to the sample in a plurality of steps, wherein the illumination pattern is moved over the sample along a direction set by a vector x, - the detector device is embodied as a pixel-comprising area detector (DE; CCD1, CCD2), - an effective pixel dimension of the area detector (DE; CCD1, CCD2) is only a fraction of a full width at half maximum of a point spread function of the imaging, taking account of an imaging scale of the microscope, - an increment of the displacement is smaller than an optical resolution limit of the microscope and detection signals of the area detector are stored for each step, characterized in that - a signal intensity D D x 0 ∝ ∫ − ∞ ∞ H x − x 0 ⋅ I x ⋅ c x dx is obtained at each pixel using the detector, where c( x): concentration distribution of reflecting structures or luminous fluorophores of the sample, H: point spread function of the imaging, I( x): illumination intensity distribution as a function of x, and - the intensity is determined in each case with n as index for the various illumination settings and j as index for the detector pixel, as a result of which a system of equations D 1, j = ∑ j I 1, j ⋅ c j ⋅ H 1, j D 2, j = ∑ j I 2, j ⋅ c j ⋅ H 2, j ⋮ D n, j = ∑ j I n, j ⋅ c j ⋅ H n, j results and the latter is solved at least approximately for c. - an illumination pattern is produced on the sample and - the illuminated sample is imaged by the microscope on a detector device, - the illumination pattern comprises at least one diffraction-limited point and is repeatedly displaced relative to the sample in a plurality of steps, wherein the illumination pattern is moved over the sample along a direction set by a vector x, - the detector device is embodied as a pixel-comprising area detector (DE; CCD1, CCD2), - an effective pixel dimension of the area detector (DE; CCD1, CCD2) is only a fraction of a full width at half maximum of a point spread function of the imaging, taking account of an imaging scale of the microscope, - an increment of the displacement is smaller than an optical resolution limit of the microscope and detection signals of the area detector are stored for each step, characterized in that - a signal intensity D D x 0 ∝ ∫ − ∞ ∞ H x − x 0 ⋅ I x ⋅ c x dx is obtained at each pixel using the detector, where c( x): concentration distribution of reflecting structures or luminous fluorophores of the sample, H: point spread function of the imaging, I( x): illumination intensity distribution as a function of x, and - the intensity is determined in each case with n as index for the various illumination settings and j as index for the detector pixel, as a result of which a system of equations D 1, j = ∑ j I 1, j ⋅ c j ⋅ H 1, j D 2, j = ∑ j I 2, j ⋅ c j ⋅ H 2, j ⋮ D n, j = ∑ j I n, j ⋅ c j ⋅ H n, j results and the latter is solved at least approximately for c.