Please note that a revised policy has been introduced for journals in the Springer Nature portfolio for authors who wish to publish their figures in colour.

Previously colour charges were only applied when authors wished to publish figures in colour in the printed version of their articles. However, author guidance on the web pages has recently been updated as follows:

For articles published in Springer journals:

Authors who wish to publish their figures in colour in the printed version of their article will be given the opportunity to order colour in print after article acceptance. Please note that the electronic version of your article will always show coloured figures at no additional cost.

These costs may not apply to all Springer journals. Please check the submission guidelines on the homepage of the journal you are publishing with to see if your journal offers coloured figures in print.

For articles published in Nature and the Nature portfolio journals: 

Authors who wish to publish their figures in colour will be given the opportunity to order colour at final revision. Please note that where authors choose to publish open access, colour charges are included in the APC at no additional cost.

These costs only apply to journals which publish in both electronic and print; there are no colour charges for journals which do not publish in print.

Please be mindful of these additional costs when seeking publication with Springer Nature as they could run to many hundreds of pounds and will only affect those authors who are hoping to publish with them at no cost and self-archive their manuscript, as outlined in my previous blog post.

If you require any advice or information on Open Access Publishing or Research Data Management, please contact the Research Outputs Team or visit our webpages.