How to attribute subfigures from other sources ? / Does cropping a figure consitute a change?
I don't see anything special.
A caption fitting the journal style but saying something like &quot;taken from fig. 2e in ref #&quot; seems perfect to me.
You are not cropping the subfigure.
But even in that case, and even if the figure would be data, you just add &quot;spectrum, plot, whatever cropped&quot; from....
Obviously what you let out should not contradict or shouldn't be much related to the point that you actually discuss.