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This guide will explain how to effectively prepare your artwork for electronic submission to our journals. Following these instructions will ensure your figures are reproduced to the highest possible standards and your article is published as quickly and efficiently as possible.
If after reading this you require any further guidance on creating suitable electronic figures, please contact your Press editor who will be able to advise you further.
In order to help prospective authors to prepare for submission and to reach their publication goals, we also offer a range of high-quality manuscript preparation services – including figure preparation – delivered in partnership with American Journal Experts. You can find out more in our author services pages .
To ensure that images and figures published in Cambridge journals are accessible and understandable by all, we strongly encourage authors to carefully consider elements such as colour use, contrast, and text clarity when preparing images and figures for inclusion in any submitted article.
More information and resources around preparing accessible figures and images are available online, e.g., from the APA Style Guidelines and the University of Bath .
Discover more information on Cambridge Core’s accessibility features and functionality.
We recommend that electronic artwork is submitted in one of the following formats:
Recommended for: all images
Recommended for: line and combination artwork
Please note that virtually all common artwork creation software is capable of saving files in TIFF or EPS format by selecting the appropriate option under the ‘Save As…’ or ‘Export…’ commands in the ‘File’ menu.
We can also accept electronic artwork in the following formats. Please note though that they are generally NOT suitable for reproduction in print, and so will result in lower quality figures in a printed journal.
Line illustrations consist of distinct straight and/or curved lines placed against a plain background, without any gradations in shade or colour. Line art is usually monochromatic but can use lines of different colours.
Halftone illustrations are images with continuous tone, such as a photograph or micrograph, and can be colour (CMYK) or black and white.
Combination illustrations contain both continuous tone and line/vector elements, and can be colour (CMYK) or black and white. For example, this may be a photograph with labelling, or a micrograph with a scale bar added. Refer to the guidelines for both line illustrations and halftones as they are applicable for combination artwork.
You are responsible for securing the copyright permissions to reuse any artwork where you are not the copyright holder. For detailed instructions on securing permissions, please see our guide to seeking permission to use copyrighted material.
Figures will not normally be reproduced in colour in a printed journal unless agreed by the journal editor, or unless the author pays the relevant charge. All journals will reproduce figures in colour online at no charge to the author. Please consult the author instructions for your journal for details of their policy on colour figures.
Where submitting colour illustrations, they should be supplied in CMYK colour mode. Avoid submitting colour images for conversion to black and white, as when converted there may be a loss of contract and detail that affects the interpretation of the figure.
The range of tones (tints) in greyscale illustrations should be between 15% and 85%. When creating a scale or using different densities to distinguish elements of a figure, use increments of at least 15-20% to ensure these can be easily differentiated.
Please provide figures at the same size or larger than they will be reproduced in the journal, either by cropping or scaling the image. If you supply images that are smaller in size than the width of a column or page in the journal, they may lose clarity and detail when enlarged.
Figure files should be saved at the following minimum resolution at approximately the final size:
Please avoid using images downloaded from the Internet, as these tend to be only 72 or 96 dpi. If you wish to use an image from a website, please contact the site’s administrator or the creator of the image and obtain a copy of the high resolution original.
If you wish to reuse an illustration or photograph from a printed book, it is better to obtain the original artwork than to scan from the printed copy. If you are providing scanned copies of an original image, make sure you scan at a minimum resolution of 300 dpi. It is advised that you save scans as a PDF where possible.
Fonts used to create or label figures should be embedded in the image file. We recommend that you use the following approved fonts, in 9 pt:
Your chosen font should be used consistently throughout all artwork. Failure to use the approved fonts may result in missing symbols or overlapping type within the illustrations.
Captions should be supplied at the end of the text of your article, and not as part of the figure files. Please ensure that every figure is cited within the article, and we will try to place your figures as close as possible to their citations in the text, but because of the limitations of page layout, it may not always be possible.
Electronic manipulation of an image using editing software to improve clarity is allowable as long as the image is not modified in a misleading way. Adjustments may be made to brightness, contrast or colour but they must be applied to the entire image and cannot be used to obscure existing data. Authors should save the original source images as these may be requested by the Editor. Cases where image processing misrepresents the original data will be dealt with in accordance with COPE guidelines.
If you are providing scanned copies of the original image, please make sure that you scan at a minimum resolution of 300 dpi, at the final size (or larger than) they will be reproduced. It is advised that you save scans as a PDF where possible.
If you wish to reuse an illustration or photograph from a printed book, it is better to obtain the original artwork than to scan from the printed copy. Photographs which have already appeared in print may have been scanned once already; if you scan them again there will be an unavoidable loss of detail.
Please note that a high resolution scan of a low resolution original will not improve the quality in any way.