“The astronomical journals in which cutting-edge results appear have changed little in the last century, and in many ways, astronomers have never even taken advantage of the innovations of “The Golden Age of Statistical Graphics” that took place during the second half of the 19th Century.”
- Alyssa Goodman
Make the size of your graph, the size it would appear on the page
http://www.astrobetter.com/making-fonts-better-in-idl-postscript-output/
Helps keep all Figures consistent in character size
Lock up that aspect ratio. LOCK IT UP.
Be Able to Understand the Plot Without the Caption
Use Legends! Save that extra caption sentence for summarizing the main point of the plot
Are the figure labels the same size as the body text?
IDL> !p.font=0
Always re-plot thick axes at the end of your procedure axis,color=fsc_color('black'),xtickformat='(A1)', xaxis=0, xthick=6, ythick=6
axis,color=fsc_color('black'),xtickformat='(A1)', xaxis=1, xthick=6, ythick=6axis,color=fsc_color('black'),ytickformat='(A1)', yaxis=0, xthick=6, ythick=6axis,color=fsc_color('black'),ytickformat='(A1)', yaxis=1, xthick=6, ythick=6
Plot Straight to File in Python
http://www.astrobetter.com/plotting-to-a-file-in-python/
Allows you to make plots without a window popping up
Useful for scripts running on a cluster
Faster!
Pick Pretty Colors A many-colored plot
Can you easily distinguish each color, if placed at random?
Do outlier colors stand out, and distinguish from other outliers?
Colorful figures pop out, and excite readers
See http://colorbrewer2.org/#
Outline Individual points Your points should be the biggest, brightest, and
boldest
Use shading, or outlining of every point (or even line!)
Create the effect of layers with muted colors or fuzz
Avoid Crowded Points http://www.astrobetter.com/slim-down-your-bloated-g
raphics/
They create large plot files, making scrolling a pain
Think of Something New
Look for creative plots on astro-ph
Draw how you want to show your result, completely unrestricted from the code
Make it your trademark – a symbol, color scheme, or creative technique that becomes associated with you