Figures

Figures should be limited to those required to show the essential features described in the manuscript. Space constraints prevent us from publishing redundant or excessive illustrations. Radiology strongly discourages the use of previously published illustrations unless absolutely essential as you may be asked by the publisher to pay a fee and some publishers will not provide permission for electronic publication, which precludes these illustrations from the online version of Radiology. Additional illustrations may be submitted as supplemental material. See http://radiology.rsnajnls.org/misc/supeppia.shtml.

Image content: whether for photographic/halftone images, graphs or illustrations, a given figure should have no more than four components (eg, a, b, c, d). Since the size of the figure printed in the Journal is typically smaller than that submitted by the author(s), each submitted figure part should show only the area(s) of interest with enough surrounding area for orientation purposes (eg, to illustrate a cavity at the right lung apex, show only that area, rather than the entire chest radiograph). All figures must be numbered with a simple naming convention (ie, “figure 1a, figure 1b, figure 2”).

When several images of a given type (eg, CT, MR, US) or view (posteroanterior and lateral) are being shown, please reproduce each specific type at the same magnification. Images should correspond in appearance to the tonal relations of the original radiograph (ie, showing the bones white on a dark background, with the patient’s right to the observer’s left; CT scans and MR images should employ the “view from below”).

Be sure to include the appropriate caption for the illustration. Label all features described in the caption, using different labels for each feature. The anonymity of patients and subjects must be preserved (see Rights and Permissions).

Digital image requirements: if an figure has been enhanced electronically, explain the alterations that have been made and send an original image along with the enhanced one.

For photographic/halftone image scans (grayscale or color)—acceptable image formats are: PSD (Photoshop), TIF, and EPS. Please save any other formats, including JPG, GIF or bitmap, immediately into an approved format before any further processing is done. Image resolution, after cropping to the area of interest, should be 300-600 dpi and image widths a minimum of 3 inches to a maximum of 7 inches. Labels/arrows should be of professional quality, placed on a separate layer of the image file (do not merge or flatten), and touch the edge of the feature being labeled (do not use equilateral triangles for arrowheads). Send all figure parts as separate images (do not combine); figure arrays will be done by RSNA professional artists’ service, provided for Radiology authors without charge.

Do not send photographic/halftone figure scans in a Word doc because significant pixel resolution will be lost. The combination of halftone & graphs/illustrations in a single figure requires a higher resolution of 600 dpi for all parts.

Graphs/Illustrations: Graphs, illustrations, and drawings rendered in professional graphics programs should be submitted in Photoshop (.psd), TIFF (.tif), or encapsulated Postscript (.eps) format at 1200 dpi. Layers should be retained (ie, do not “flatten” the image). If the graph or illustration was created in Excel or Word, we recommend that you submit the original file in the native format (.xls for Excel, .doc for Word), which can be rendered as high-resolution images by RSNA.

Color is acceptable for charts and graphs (see following illustrations). Owing to some printing restraints, however, colors may be altered at the discretion of our production staff. When applicable, color will be added to any chart or graph that has been submitted in black and white. Do not use patterns or textures; use of three-dimensional graphs is discouraged unless all three axes are needed to depict data. The following color palette (derived from Word and Excel) should be used:

Note that these are color names provided by Microsoft. In figure captions, more common names may be used (eg, green rather than lime, blue rather than indigo). Symbols (eg, circles, triangles, squares), letters (eg, words, abbreviations), and numbers should be large enough to be legible on reduction to Radiology's column widths. All symbols must be defined in the figure caption. If the symbols are too complex to appear in the caption, they should appear on the illustration itself, within the area of the graph or diagram, not to the side (samples below).