SPIE - the international society for optics and photonics - has been the professional home of light-based science and engineering since 1955. From its headquarters in Bellingham, Washington, the non-profit society publishes 16 peer-reviewed journals spanning optics, photonics, imaging, lithography, remote sensing, and biomedical optics, and runs one of the largest conference-proceedings programs in the physical sciences through events such as Photonics West, Optics + Photonics, and Defense + Commercial Sensing. The SPIE Digital Library hosts more than 660,000 journal articles, proceedings papers, presentations, and eBooks.

If your research touches lasers, optical design, imaging systems, nanophotonics, or biomedical optics, an SPIE journal is likely on your shortlist. This guide covers how to pick the right SPIE venue, what open access costs, how peer review works, and how the journals relate to SPIE's famous conference proceedings.

SPIE's titles serve different subfields and open-access needs - from the flagship gold-OA Advanced Photonics to the broad, long-running Optical Engineering. Use the guide below to choose a route for your manuscript.

16 peer-reviewed journals, all within optics and photonics:

• Flagship OA titles - Advanced Photonics and Advanced Photonics Nexus, selective gold-OA journals co-published with Chinese Laser Press.
• Biomedical family - Journal of Biomedical Optics (fully OA), Neurophotonics (fully OA), Biophotonics Discovery (fully OA), and Journal of Medical Imaging.
• Engineering and imaging - Optical Engineering (the society's original journal), Journal of Electronic Imaging (co-published with IS&T), and Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems.
• Applied and specialty titles - Journal of Applied Remote Sensing, Journal of Nanophotonics, Journal of Photonics for Energy, Journal of Micro/Nanopatterning, Materials, and Metrology, and Journal of Optical Microsystems.

Beyond the journals, SPIE publishes tens of thousands of conference proceedings papers each year from its technical meetings, plus an eBook program (Tutorial Texts, Field Guides, and monographs). Proceedings papers are citable and indexed, but they are not peer reviewed to the same standard as journal articles - many authors present at a conference first, then submit an expanded version to an SPIE journal.

SPIE offers three routes:

• Gold OA (fully-OA journals) - five titles: Advanced Photonics, Advanced Photonics Nexus, Biophotonics Discovery, Journal of Biomedical Optics, and Neurophotonics (JBO and Neurophotonics converted from hybrid to fully OA in January 2023). Articles are published under CC BY.
• Hybrid OA - the remaining subscription journals let authors pay a fee to make an individual article open access.
• Green OA (self-archiving) - SPIE permits authors to self-archive; check the per-title policy on Sherpa Romeo for versions and embargoes.

SPIE revises fees periodically and fee schedules vary by journal and article type, so always check the journal's official fee page before submission. Formal read-and-publish agreements are limited compared with large commercial publishers - ask your library or check the ESAC registry whether your institution has a deal that covers SPIE fees.

• Model: single-anonymized peer review across the SPIE journal portfolio - reviewers know author identities, authors do not know reviewers.
• Editors: each journal is led by an active researcher as editor-in-chief, supported by field-specific senior and associate editors.
• Turnaround: varies by title and article type; the newer OA titles emphasize rapid decisions. Check each journal's page for current average times.
• Proceedings vs journals: conference proceedings undergo lighter review by conference chairs; journal articles receive full peer review.

1. Pick the journal. Match your topic to the journal scopes above; consult recent issues to confirm fit.
2. Read the author guidelines. Each SPIE journal has title-specific guidelines covering length, structure, and figures.
3. Prepare your manuscript. SPIE uses a numbered citation style; SciSpace formatting support is available for SPIE journals.
4. Submit via ScholarOne. SPIE journals use the ScholarOne Manuscripts platform for submission and review - each journal's page links to its own ScholarOne site.
5. Consider the conference route. Presenting at an SPIE conference first is common; the proceedings paper does not prevent submitting an expanded journal version.

SPIE is a member of COPE and follows COPE guidance on authorship, plagiarism, corrections, and retractions. Authors retain copyright under CC BY for open-access articles; subscription articles use a standard transfer/licence agreement. As a non-profit society, SPIE returns publishing surpluses to the optics community - it has contributed more than $26 million over the past five years to scholarships, education, and outreach.