Don't write labels through the lines If you add labels to a line drawing, take the extra hour to optimise the position of the labels. You spent several months on this article, so the extra hour to make a nice plot out of a poor plot is worth it. If you need to move labels in stereo plots, make sure that you move them equally in both halves of the plot. If you want to add labels to a stereo plot, add them in both halves of the plot with the same translation relative to the atom you want to label. Think of the final size of the plot Stereo plots for lens viewing can never be wider than 6.25cm.
Some journals require plots to be exactly one or two columns wide.
This puts some constraints on what you can put in a picture. Make plots over size Make plots much bigger than they will be in the journal. They are invariably reduced. The photographic reduction process involves less loss of quality than does printing smaller on the laser writer, no matter how expensive your laser writer. But remember to scale everything, including labels linewidth, etc.