Instructions for presentation of articles. 2. illustrations
Legal aspects
Like any other intellectual work, images are subject to copyright. If you wish to insert an image (photo, film, etc.) in an article (on the Internet or any other publicly accessible medium), you must therefore comply with the laws governing its use.
Authors should ensure that they own the rights to the illustrations used in their article or that they are free to use (specifying the licence). To do this, the author should contact the creator of the illustration or the publisher of the publication to ensure that they can include it in their own text. As publisher, EchoGéo has a duty to ensure that rights are respected and can ask the author to certify that authorisation has been granted or, failing that, that the necessary steps have been taken but have not been returned.
Note: images may also be protected by rights other than copyright. For example, a photograph of a work of art involves the copyright of both the artist and the photographer who took the photograph.
In this case, use of the image requires both authorisations, or only that of the photographer if the work depicted is in the public domain (author dead for more than 70 years).
Where people are identifiable in the photographs, whether in a public or private space, the photographer must ensure that these people have given their prior written consent to the use of their image - except in special cases such as a photograph of a news event or a public demonstration, where the right to information and artistic creation is respected.
To note down the precise references of an image found on the Internet, note down:
- the name of the author or, failing that, the publisher (this can be a person or an organisation);
- the title of the illustration;
- the name of the site;
- the title of the page, which corresponds to the part of the site where you found it;
- the URL of the web page, an essential reference for finding the image, to be copied precisely as it appears in the address bar (followed by the date on which the site was consulted)..
Technical instructions
The source files for the illustrations must be sent in a folder separate from the text of the article, making sure that the name given to each file is self-explanatory and refers to the title of the illustration mentioned in the text file (Ill1, Ill2a, IllA...). The text file should specify where in the article the attached illustrations should appear, along with their title, caption and source.
Avoid dots in file names: use dashes [-] or underscores [_] instead.
Illustration files should preferably be in TIFF or PNG format. For JPEG files, the author must ensure the quality of the images (weight/compression ratio). Other formats (SVG, DXF, etc.) are not permitted.
Curves, histograms and other figures of this type must themselves be sent in the form of images (Word or Excel formats are not permitted).
The minimum image size is 1,500 pixels for the largest side. It is entirely possible to include larger images, but you should be aware that when they are displayed in the article, they will first appear as thumbnails (the same width as the text), but can be clicked on to be displayed with a magnifying glass.
Additional instructions:
- leave at least 5 mm of free space around the image ;
- When sending illustrations created with Illustrator and containing special fonts or symbols, please ensure that you have vectorised these elements before converting and exporting them in image format;
- for maps, it is essential to have worked out their design at the display scale so that they are effectively legible, and don't forget to mention the scale in each image file;
- for tables it is essential to use an image format as soon as they exceed three or four columns in order to remain screen-readable;
- for diagrams, be sure to use a font size large enough to be readable on screen.
Editorial guidelines
For each illustration, the associated text file must include the following information:
- its title;
- any commentary or caption details (optional);
- the source(s) of the data for the illustration or the illustration itself (if taken from a publication);
- and/or the name(s) of the author(s)/designer(s) followed by the date of creation.
CAUTION: these details will appear in the text of the article (so that the image files can be summarised at the end of the article), so it is not necessary to include them in the illustration itself, except for the copyright.
When the images are by the same author(s) as the text, please ensure that the name(s) can be easily masked for double-blind evaluation of the article.
Maps with black backgrounds are not accepted.
Photographic plates or "carto-illustrative" montages are not accepted either, to ensure that the illustrations are easy to read on the magazine's website and when the PDF is printed. The only presentation tolerated is the placing of two images or an image and a map side by side, at least as long as such a presentation is justified in the analysis made in the text and remains legible when the text is consulted.
In the latter case, please provide the two image files to be combined, mention the face-to-face montage requested in the text and give the file names clearly (Illustration1a, Illustration1b or Illustration1right, Illustration1left).
Very rare exceptions, to be justified, may be authorised.
For the purposes of harmonisation, the illustrations supplied may be retouched and/or slightly cropped.
EchoGéo reserves the right to refuse an illustration if its content or form does not meet the requirements listed, particularly in terms of legibility.