Best workflow for publication-quality figures with multiple subplots? What’s the best way to create full publication-quality (i.e. vector) figures from multiple subplots, from various sources? For example, I want to include a TIFF microscopy image and an EPS plot exported from Matlab in the same figure. A friend suggested PowerPoint, but it no longer supports EPS plots. Loading and exporting the full figures from Matlab is an option. I haven't used LaTeX – if this is suggested, what packages would be required?

My journal requires figures to be in EPS or TIFF format.
Creating figures with multiple subplots requires a lot of fine tuning that make programmatic approaches (like LaTeX, or R) tricky. It usually makes more sense to do this by hand, since the layout of subplots can change depending on personal preferences and revisions.

A few options:


Inkscape is a good open source tool for making vector graphics, as mentioned
Adobe Illustrator is a common, professional tool for vector graphics
Affinity Designer is a cheaper professional alternative to Illustrator, and works very well with many different file formats, and I've found more intuitive than Illustrator