  Images document scientific discoveries and are prevalent in modern biomedical
research. Microscopy imaging in particular is currently undergoing rapid
technological advancements. However for scientists wishing to publish the
obtained images and image analyses results, there are to date no unified
guidelines. Consequently, microscopy images and image data in publications may
be unclear or difficult to interpret. Here we present community-developed
checklists for preparing light microscopy images and image analysis for
publications. These checklists offer authors, readers, and publishers key
recommendations for image formatting and annotation, color selection, data
availability, and for reporting image analysis workflows. The goal of our
guidelines is to increase the clarity and reproducibility of image figures and
thereby heighten the quality of microscopy data is in publications.
