Figure instructions
We want your figures to look as clear as possible, whether in the printed version of the JCI or online. When you are preparing your figures for submission (with the goal of eventual publication), an understanding of pixels will help ease the burden of sending us or any other journal images of your figures in a format suitable for publication.
A pixel is a dot of information in a digital image. If you take a high-resolution digital picture (that is, a picture with many pixels), this allows you more opportunity to enlarge the image on screen or in print without losing much (if any) apparent detail. If you enlarge the image too much, you’ll notice that the detail of the image appears blocky, or pixelated. Likewise, if you are working with a low-resolution image, this effect is immediately noticeable and becomes worse when the image is enlarged. This is also true for images that were scanned from printed material or photographic prints: if the image was scanned at high resolution, there is more information in the image to allow better-quality display on screen or when printed. If the image was scanned at low resolution, the poor result — a pixelated image — is immediately obvious.
When we receive your images for publication, we ensure that they are of sufficient resolution. This is the first critical step to achieving a high-quality result in print and online for your work. Typically what we find is that images have been produced for presentation on a computer screen. A computer screen displays information at 72 or 96 pixels per inch (referred to as PPI); a typical laser printer prints at 300 pixels per inch (also referred to as dots per inch, or DPI). Printing presses used by publishers for their print editions have the capability of printing at 1200 DPI or much higher. Our goal is to receive the highest-resolution images from authors so that figures are printed with as much clarity and detail as possible. We also use the high-resolution images to produce different versions of figures online, in particular a large version that readers can view to more detail — more detail, in fact, than might be obvious in the printed version.
In short, a figure that looks suitable on screen might not be at all suitable for publication. The instructions below are intended to illustrate why we ask for what we ask for. Like you, we are seeking the highest standard for publication of your work.
The following figure published in the JCI is representative of the quality we strive to meet:
General requirements
- Resolution – ppi requirements
- All figures require a resolution of at least 600ppi. Images designed for the web are usually 72 ppi and are not sufficient quality for our uses.
- Images containing only black and white elements (no color, no gray) require a resolution of 1200ppi.
- Images containing both grayscale and black and white only elements, 600ppi is sufficient.
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| Photographic image – 600 ppi |
Grayscale – 600 ppi |
Black & white only – 1200 ppi |
- Figure should be 9–18 cm (3.5–7.1 in) wide
- Photographic panels: at least 3 cm wide per panel
- Blots: 0.5 cm per lane
- Font: 8 pt Helvetica
- Avoid the use of drop shadows
- Avoid use of gratuitous color and boxes
- Avoid labels over color photograph panels when possible
- Avoid pairing red and green for bar and line graphs to ensure legibility for colorblind readers
Start with high-quality files
- Figures should look sharp and crisp when viewed at the appropriate ppi.
- Be aware of your settings when compiling, converting, and resizing to make sure you don’t compromise the quality of your resolution. Be careful not to reduce the ppi or save as a low quality jpeg when you are compiling your figures.
Don’t manipulate your figures
- No specific feature within an image may be enhanced, obscured, moved, removed, or introduced.
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| Before manipulation |
After manipulation |
- Gels – Spliced together lanes of gels must be separated by a thin white line and the legend should note that the lanes were run on the same gel but were noncontiguous.
- Inset photos – If multiple stained cells are composited into a single frame, a border must be drawn around the cells that were not originally included in the field of view.
File formats
TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) is best but it is possible that we can accept some Powerpoint, high-res PDF, EPS, and Illustrator files. We cannot accept Canvas or Corel Draw files.
During the production process, figures may be resized, rearranged, and edited to conform to JCI style.
Don’t save your files as low or medium quality jpegs
If this is done at any point in the process of making your figures, it will negatively affect the quality of the final version. When dealing with a jpeg file, there is an additional quality setting seperate from ppi. This setting determines the amount of compression of the file. The more compressed the file is, the worse it looks. If you have already saved as a low quality file, you will need to go back to an earlier version.
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| High-quality jpeg file |
Low-quality jpeg file |
Large file size
If you are having trouble uploading your figures due to their size, you can use LZW compression in Photoshop when you save your figures as TIFF files. This should reduce their size significantly. Alternatively, you can ZIP your figures using any number of freely available software programs that will allow you to do this.
Secondly, make sure that the BIT depth of your figures is at 8-bits/Channel. 16 or 24 bit figures are not necessary, and increases file size.
You can also help reduce the size of your files by cropping out unnecessary white space around the borders of your figures.
Please make sure all layers in your TIFF file have been flattened.
Finally, make sure that any figures requested in Grayscale are actually in Grayscale mode. It is quite common for authors to provide these figures with an RGB or CMYK color scheme, which again will increase the size of the file.
Make sure the figure dimensions are large enough
Figures should be 9–18 cm (3.5–7.1 inches) wide when printed at the appropriate resolution. Figures may appear large enough onscreen but this may not correspond to a large enough print size.
The image appears large on screen, is too small for a printed page:
Specific issues with software programs
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- Creating Powerpoint files
- Before inserting panels into Powerpoint, make sure each panel is at appropriate ppi and width.
- If you want all of your panels a consistent size, crop them appropriately before putting them into Powerpoint. It is not acceptable to resize them disproportionately.
- Be careful not to resize the images in Powerpoint because this causes them to become pixelated.
- Converting to Tiffs
- Macintosh computer: print to pdf file
- PC: save as high resolution pdf file
- Open file using Photoshop taking care to follow the directions below
Changing file size or resolution (ppi)
- Resampling – make sure this box in unchecked. This will ensure the pixel count remains unchanged.
- Constrained proportions – keep this box checked. This makes sure the dimensions remain proportional when resizing the image.
Converting from pdf format to a Photoshop tiff file
- Resolution – set the resolution at 600 or 1200 ppi accordingly
- Mode – set the mode at ‘CMYK’ for images with color and ‘Grayscale’ for other images
- Anti-aliasing – make sure this box is checked
- Save this new file in tiff format
Creating Illustrator files
- Before inserting panels into Illustrator, make sure each panel is at appropriate ppi and width.
- If you want all of your panels a consistent size, crop them appropriately before putting them into Illustrator. It is not acceptable to resize them disproportionately.
- Be careful not to resize the images in Illustrator because this causes them to become pixelated.
Converting to Tiffs
- Save file as EPS format file
- Open file in Photoshop – see directions above
Converting Excel graphs to tiff format
- Macintosh computer: print to pdf file
- PC: save as high resolution pdf file
- Open file in Photoshop – see directions above
