High-quality scientific figures convey complex datasets instantly and project professional authority. Substandard, blurry, or mislabeled graphs are a frequent cause of publication delays and reviewer skepticism.
Essential Figure Specifications
- DPI / Resolution: Minimum 300 DPI for continuous tone photographs, 600 DPI for combination halftones, and 1200 DPI for line artwork (EPS / PDF / TIFF).
- Font Consistency: Standardize on clean sans-serif typography (Arial, Helvetica, or Calibri) with font sizes between 8 pt and 10 pt at final print scale.
- Color Accessibility: Avoid red-green palettes. Use universally accessible perceptually uniform colormaps such as Viridis, Magma, or Okabe-Ito.
Rule of Thumb: Every multi-panel figure (e.g., Panels A–F) should tell a cohesive, self-explanatory story with clear internal scale bars and defined statistical legends.
