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Guidelines for Photographs and Illustrations

The appearance of a book—and its success with reviewers and buyers—can depend greatly on its visual qualities, especially its illustrations. Take a critical look at any photographs, maps, drawings or other illustrations you plan to send us: Are they sharp and clear? Do they show good contrast between black and white? The images on the printed page can be no better than the quality of the originals you provide. Avoid the following:

• Photocopies (except of black on white line drawings), laser copies, or printouts of scans. Even if these look OK to a casual glance, they will not reproduce well in the book. The rescanning and printing process will magnify all their faults, often producing a ripply moiré pattern and poor contrast.
  
  
• "Screen captures" or "frame grabs" from videotape or disk. Even with the best equipment, these yield poor results.
  
  
• Newspaper or magazine clippings.
  
  
• Amateur color snapshots or Polaroids. Sometimes usable in a pinch, but they lose quality when converted to black and white.
  
  
• Very small originals. If at all possible, send at least 5 x 7s—and 8 x 10 glossies are even better.

Captioning
To ensure accuracy, please follow the following procedure for captions:

• Put the photos and other illustrations in order and number them on their backs in a single sequence, using grease pencil or china marker (not ballpoint pen or anything that might transfer ink to the front of the next photo).
  
  
• Create a typed caption list keyed to the same numbers. Every photo or illustration needs a caption! Include any necessary credits as part of the captions and give us approximate placement suggestions ("#12 near p. 82").
  
  
• If any photo or illustration is especially important, please flag it and explain why. We may not use every photo you send—we may weed some out if there are quality problems, permission issues, or just too many photos.
  
  
• Keep a numbered set of photocopies for yourself, in case we have questions later about individual photographs.

Readers like rich captions. Each caption should be full and descriptive of the image. For example, if people appear in a photo, be sure to identify each of them and state in what order (usually from left to right). Identify the date of a photograph, even if you can only approximate ("Smith at home, probably around 1950"). For film stills, identify the film and date (studio is often important), the actors (and sometimes their character names), and the action depicted.

If you are submitting scans (see below), they too need captions and numbers. Name the files to indicate the numbers: for example, author Sally Smith might name her files Smith1, Smith2 etc. And include the captions for scans in your master caption list, identifying them by file name.

How About Scanning?
Scanning your own photos and submitting them on Zip or CD is a good option for some but not all authors. Please don't consider it unless you have high-grade equipment, plenty of experience, and a good reason to scan rather than send originals.

To reproduce well, scans must meet a rigid set of specifications—for example, they must be saved in TIFF format, in grayscale, and at a resolution of 300 dpi or higher. The physical dimensions of the scanned images matter too: once they are saved at a certain size, they cannot be enlarged much without serious quality loss. Generally you should scan everything at 100 percent of original size unless the original is unusually small or large.

If you do scan some or all of your illustrations, we must have a printout of each of them, showing the file name. Thumbnail printouts are acceptable if you have a very high number of scans; otherwise we'd prefer a full-size printout.

Do not embed scans in the text file of the manuscript.

The most important thing we can say is talk to us first, then send a few samples.

Sending Your Illustrations
Please send all your photos and other illustrations at one time, together with the completed manuscript. This helps ensure that none will be misplaced or left out. Once typesetting begins we cannot add any new photos; nor can we leave space for something we do not yet have.

We cannot record your manuscript as complete, or begin any work on it, until we have all its pieces.

If you have more than a handful of illustrations, we ask that you make a set of photocopies and include them in the manuscript, each in its intended spot. Doing so will help with accurate placement and provide a little extra protection for the originals, by cutting down on handling.

Take care in packaging your illustrations. Reinforce them with heavy cardboard, select a sturdy box or mailer and tape the package well. Assume they will receive rough handling in transit—often they do.

McFarland needs to keep everything until after the book is published. At that point we return all photographs or other illustrations to the author.

Drawings, Maps, Graphs and Other Special Illustrations
These present their own problems. They must be in black ink on white paper, having strong consistent lines and using no color. Gradients of gray shading are not desirable (they won't be distinguishable on the printed page). Crosshatching is generally the better approach. We need crisp originals, not second-generation copies.

Be alert to size problems. All your illustrations must fit within the print block of the book page-usually between 4 and 5½ inches wide and between 7 and 8½ inches tall. If your originals are larger, ask yourself how they will look when reduced. This is especially important to consider when there is print, as in the case of maps. All print must remain legible. A map that cannot be read is an annoyance to the reader and can only hurt the book.

If you're in doubt, send us samples early so that we can offer feedback.

What About Permissions?
Permission is required for the reproduction of many graphic materials. You are responsible for obtaining and paying for these releases when necessary.

Items that are definitely in the public domain do not need permission from a copyright standpoint, but suppliers may charge a use fee or request a specific credit. If the latter, be sure to include the credit in your caption.

The copyright principle of "fair use" provides for limited use of copyrighted material in certain cases; over the years it has often been taken to support modest use of film stills, for example. If you are in doubt about the need for permission, please feel free to discuss your questions with us before sending the manuscript.

In dealing with materials created by others specifically for your book, we and you want if possible a simple statement signed by the third party that you "own" those materials and that no remuneration is expected from the publisher.

When dealing with institutions or commercial photo providers, you may have to work with their standard releases. You need "nonexclusive world rights" for anything you want to use. Try to avoid term or print run limitations, as we need the freedom to reprint your book whenever sales warrant.

Consult our guidelines for permissions for further information.

Final Thoughts
In most projects, photos and other illustrations present no real problems. By sending mainly 8 x 10 black and white glossies and applying a critical eye, you can help ensure that your book will look as good as it deserves to.

If you believe that a particular photo might be a good candidate to incorporate in the cover design of your book, please indicate this to us.

Feel free to contact any of the McFarland editorial staff by e-mail or regular mail at any time. Editorial assistants can also be reached by telephone. We're more than happy to field questions, look at samples, or offer advice.