Zootaxa: illustrations

Instructions for Zootaxa authors: illustrations

These instructions tell you how to:

These instructions also help you to:

1) For reviewing

For reviewing purposes your plates do not need to have a resolution as high as required for the final submition. The most convenient is to combine your plates in a single multi-page PDF file. If the resulting file is too big to be emailed, please contact me and I will instruct you how to FTP the file or make other arrangements. Please do not insert your plates in the same file as the text of your manuscript.

2) Final submition (2.1 Black-and-white=line art; 2.2 Color images; 2.3 Greyscale images)

2.1) Your black-and-white drawings (line art) need to be submitted as 600 dpi TIFs. Please do not submit these drawings as color or grayscale images. In Photoshop you need to select "Bitmap":

If you are converting your line art drawing from a grayscale image, you need to posterize it before converting to bitmap. Here is how you do it:

a) This is your orginal image:

b) In the main menu select Image>Adjustments>Posterize... :

c) Enter 2 in the Levels box and click OK:

d) Then modify the image to Bitmap:

f) Save the result.

2.2) Your color images need to be submitted as 300 dpi TIFs. Please adjust levels of individual figures BEFORE assembling them in a plate. Here is how you do it:

a) Your original image:

b) In the main menu select: Image>Adjustments>Levels

c) Here is what you will see:

d) You will need to move sliders below the histogram in such a way as to eliminate the lightest and/or the darkest pixels, not representted in your image:

e) This is the result. When you look at the levels of your adjusted image here is what you will see:

Unless you wish to pay for printing color plates in the paper version of the journal, I need a grayscale copy of your every color plate. It needs to be an exact copy, except that it will lack color.

2.3) Your grayscale images need to be submitted as 300 dpi TIFs. Please adjust levels of individual figures BEFORE assembling them in a plate, UNLESS your grayscale plates are copies of your color plates. In the last case you need to adjust levels of your original color plates before converting them to grayscale (as described above). You can improve your grayscale images by sharpening them. I think it is better to sharpen individual figures BEFORE assembling them in a plate, UNLESS your grayscale plate is a copy of your color plate. In that last case you can sharpen the entire plate. Here is how you do it:

a) This is your original image:

b) In the main menu select Filter>Sharpen>Unsharp mask... :

c) Unsharp mask allows more flexibility in the amount of sharpening, compared to other options. It has three parameters: diameter, threshold, amount. Set diameter to approximately 1.6 (1.4-1.8). Set threshold to approximately 12 (9-18). Set amount to a pleasing level. As you increase the amount, you will notice some graininess appearing. Once you see that grain, reduce the amount by approximately 10-20%. If no acceptable result emerges, modify threshold, but leave diameter rather small.
 

 

A more detailed guide is available at Zootaxa website. Check it out at http://www.mapress.com/zootaxa/imaging/index.html.

 

Last updated: April 29, 2009

Published Nov. 20, 2014 10:19 AM