Image format#
Light microscopy images in publications can rapidly communicate useful details if they are prepared to be information dense, clean and containing the most important information/metadata the audience needs to see at a glance. A set of simple processing rules can focus the audience’s attention to the most relevant parts that are crucial for understanding the experiment and/or results. Consult the steps below to start your journey to create understandable and reproducible figures.
Minimal
Focus on relevant content
Crop empty/irrelevant pixels to focus the audience’s attention. Rotate images where required, ideally in 90 degree increments. Resize images to fit the intended panel size.
Separate individual images
A border between individual images makes distinction easier reducing the risk of confusion and mix up bot for the author and the audience. There should always be some sort of border with a strong contrast to indicate a difference between images, whether this is the same color as the page background for individual images in a panel, or a color not otherwise found in the image for a magnified inset.
Show example image used for quantifications
Provide context and a dash of accountability by complementing a graph of results with one of the quantified images. Those example images should be unchanged to show the original data that were used for quantification. It maximally should include a quantitative background subtraction by subtracting a measured imaging background value if significantly high to reduce any negative impact on intensity readout. Any contrast adjustment should be avoided on those examples.
None
Indicate position of zoom-view/inset in full-view/original image
When the big picture is as important as the small details, show both. An indication of the position of the detailed image that must be highlighted to the audience is a valuable tool. Zoomed-in areas of an overview image should always be indicated as exactly as possible.
Show images of the range of described phenotype
As tempting as it may be to cherry pick the image that shows the nicest or most representative case, show the audience a flavor of everything: the good, the bad and the ugly.