Guidelines for Creating Art in the Digital Age

Guidelines for Creating Art in the Digital Age

Original, "Camera-Ready" Art

If at all possible, avoid making prescreened line art (art containing gray shading). It is practically impossible to accurately digitize these images without creating "blotchy" patterns.

If you must provide an image that contains screens, the following guidelines apply:

Always submit the image at its final size:
For Ground Water: 21.5 picas wide (9 cm or 3-9/16 in) for one-column art or 44.5 picas wide (18.7 cm or 7-3/8 in) for two-column art.

For Ground Water Monitoring & Remediation: 20 picas wide (8.4 cm or 3-5/16 in) for one-column art or 42 picas wide (17.7 cm or 7 in) for two-column art.
Generate the image at line screens of 85 lines per inch (lpi) or lower.
When applying multiple shades of gray, differentiate the gray levels by at least 20%. In other words, apply gray in increments or steps no closer than 20%: use 20% black, 40% black, and 60% black. Alternately, use various pattern backgrounds (solid dots, lines, bricks, diamonds, squares, etc.).
Never use levels of gray below 20% or above 70% black. Levels of gray outside these guidelines will either fade out or become totally black upon scanning and reduction.

Use thick, solid lines that are no finer than 1 point in thickness.

Use bold, solid type. Avoid using type with serifs (e.g., Times); sans serif type (e.g., Helvetica) reproduces best.

At 100% size, no type should be smaller than 9 point.

Avoid layering type directly over shaded or textured areas. Create a white box and place the lettering within the boundaries of the white box.

Avoid the use of reversed type (white lettering on a black background).

Originals must be perfectly clean and neat. The scanner faithfully reproduces all smudges, crooked lines, and stray marks that it sees.

Use high quality laser printer paper or bond paper. Opacity and smoothness are important quality factors in the scanning process.

Surface smoothness is critical: tape, creases, and other minor surface irregularities are unacceptable since they will produce shadows that the scanner sees as black. Maximize the black and white contrast (the toner level in the printing device must be high.) The scanner does not improve contrast; it reproduces contrast as is.

Use the highest resolution possible on your printer or graphics plotting device.

Photocopies are unacceptable.

Figures Submitted on Disk

We know that one of the solutions to the prescreened art problem is to accept and use the author’s electronic art. We are working towards solving this rather complicated problem.

At this time, we can only accept figures that are in a TIFF or EPS format. You also must submit hard (paper) copies as a back-up, in the event the digital file fails. Please continue to follow the above guidelines for both the figures submitted on disk and the hard copies.

For a more detailed explanation of the above guidelines, please visit

http://cjs.cadmus.com/helpful/scan.html.

Please direct any inquiries to Jill Ross, Associate Editor (

) or Colleen Murphy, Manuscript Coordinator ( phone: 800-332-2104 or 614-882-8179; fax: 614-898-7786.

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Last Updated March 17, 1998

National Ground Water Association
601 Dempsey Road • Westerville • OH • 43081
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