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AMS Resources and Response to the Federal Science Crisis
A note about accessibility: When preparing your figures, please select color palettes that effectively convey the meaning of the figure but are legible for readers with color vision impairment. Further guidance can be found in the Accessibility section.
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Low-resolution images are one of the leading causes of art resubmission and schedule delays. Submitted raster (i.e., pixel based) images must meet the minimum resolution requirements. Raster images can be classified as monochrome (line art), halftone, or combination halftone. Some of the common raster file formats that cannot be accepted are GIF, BMP, and PS.
Vector images are typically generated using drawing or illustration programs (e.g., Adobe Illustrator) and are composed of mathematically defined geometric shapes—lines, objects, and fills. Vector graphics are resolution independent and can be sized up or down without quality loss.
PowerPoint slides, Excel graphs, or images embedded in Word are acceptable formats. When creating the original file in a Microsoft Office application, follow these general rules to ensure that the initial file is properly prepared:
Click to enlarge
All color image files must be submitted in their original RGB color. This will ensure that the brightest possible RGB colors will show online, as the RGB color space (light based) is capable of producing more saturated colors than the CMYK (ink based) color space. Please be aware that some colors may become destaturated when figure images are converted to CMYK for print. This occurs most significantly with bright greens, oranges, and blues, as seen in the example below.
To ensure the best possible conversion to CMYK for the printed journal, when you work with raster images, use an application that supports ICC profiles, such as Adobe Photoshop. Be sure to always embed the originating ICC profile when saving the file. This is usually the default behavior. For example, this screen shot is from the "Save As..." dialog box in Photoshop. The box to embed the ICC profile is checked by default; do not uncheck it. If you are using a different application, please see the appropriate documentation to ensure you are properly embedding the ICC profiles.
Authors are strongly encouraged to prepare their color figures so that the use of color effectively conveys the point of the figure, while ensuring that color-blind readers will be able to distinguish the various colors used and fully comprehend the figure. The following resources can assist authors in accomplishing this goal:
“Somewhere over the rainbow: How to make effective use of colors in meteorological visualizations.” A BAMS article by Stauffer et al. (2015; doi:10.1175/BAMS-D-13-00155.1).
“How to make scientific figures accessible to readers with color-blindness.” An online post by Mary Spiro of The American Society for Cell Biology.
The American Meteorological Society remains neutral with respect to land-based political borders and names or references to land-based locations in AMS journals. However, no borders or territorial boundaries should be shown over oceans and adjacent seas, gulfs, or other oceanic water bodies on figures in AMS publications.
AMS journals have standard widths for figures in our print journals and online PDFs (see table). In-figure text or other details may affect the final size. For example, AMS may set a figure larger than the standard width to ensure clarity. Alternatively, AMS may set a figure smaller than the standard width if there is less detail or if in-figure text is large. The height of a figure may also affect the final size. Other sizing exceptions exist.
Note that submitted figures may be at larger than the standard widths. This can be beneficial, for example, during the peer review process.
* Unit conversion: 1 pica = 0.167 in. or 0.423 cm.