How to add a newline after a figure?

Question

It seems that after figures there is no vertical space whatsoever. LaTeX doesn't seem to like me adding a \\ after the figure, too.

How can I accomplish some vertical spacing after a figure?

Here's my current latex code:

\begin{figurehere}
    \centering
        \includegraphics[width=16cm]{abc.png}
    \caption{\footnotesize{my footnote 1}}
    \label{q-qg}
\end{figurehere}

\begin{figurehere}
    \centering
        \includegraphics[width=16cm]{def.png}
    \caption{\footnotesize{my footnote 2}}
    \label{q-qg}
\end{figurehere}

\noindent abcabc

This is the header of my file:

\documentclass[a4paper,10pt]{article}
\pagenumbering{arabic}
\pagestyle{headings}
\usepackage{color}
\definecolor{dkgreen}{rgb}{0,0.5,0}

\usepackage[left=2.5cm,top=2cm,right=2.5cm,bottom=3cm]{geometry}
\usepackage{listings}
\lstset{language=Java, keywordstyle=\color{blue}, commentstyle=\color{dkgreen},escapechar=|}
\usepackage{multicol,multirow,graphicx,tabularx}
\usepackage{marvosym,textcomp,cancel,gensymb,lscape}

\usepackage{hyperref}
\usepackage{pdflscape}  
\usepackage{subfigure}
\usepackage{ucs}  %Unicode support
\usepackage[utf8x]{inputenc} % UCS' UTF-8 driver is better than the LaTeX kernel's
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}  %The default font encoding only contains Latin characters
\usepackage{ae,aecompl}  %Almost European fonts/hyphenation do a better job than Computer Modern
\usepackage{amsmath, amsthm, amssymb}  %something i found for page numbering

%hack para meter imagens e tabelas em multicol
\makeatletter
\newenvironment{tablehere}
  {\def\@captype{table}}
  {}

\newenvironment{figurehere}
  {\def\@captype{figure}}
  {}
\makeatother

\newenvironment{lista}{
\begin{itemize}
  \setlength{\itemsep}{2pt}
  \setlength{\parskip}{0pt}
  \setlength{\parsep}{0pt}}{
  \end{itemize}
}

%e uns teoremazinhos$\eta$
\newtheorem{theorem}{Theorem}[section]
\newtheorem{lemma}[theorem]{Lemma}
\newtheorem{proposition}[theorem]{Proposition}
\newtheorem{corollary}[theorem]{Corollary}

\title{{\bfseriesyyy}\\{\bfseries \small xxx}}
\author{\Large{xyz}\\ abcde}
\date{some date}

 %costumizar captions e titulos
\renewcommand{\abstractname}{Resumo}
\renewcommand{\figurename}{Fig.}
\renewcommand{\tablename}{Tabela}
\renewcommand\refname{Referências}

\long\def\symbolfootnote[#1]#2{\begingroup
\def\thefootnote{\fnsymbol{footnote}}\footnote[#1]{#2}\endgroup}

Answer 1

If you really want your figures and tables here-and-no-discussion-about-it, then you can load the float package and use

\begin{figure}[H]
...
\end{figure}

\begin{table}[H]
...
\end{table}

instead of your figurehere and tablehere environments (which are defined not to leave any vertical space around them). It will be easier to modify the option to get a floating environment (which I recommend).

Side notes

1. Don't use the ae and aecompl packages: they are obsolete. Also subfigure is obsolete and subfig should be used.

2. Usage of ucs and the [utf8x] option to inputenc is probably not needed (and incompatible with packages such as biblatex); use simply

   \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
   

3. hyperref should be loaded last

Here's an amended version

\documentclass[a4paper,10pt]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}

\usepackage[left=2.5cm,top=2cm,right=2.5cm,bottom=3cm]{geometry}

\usepackage{color}

\usepackage{multicol,multirow,graphicx,tabularx}
\usepackage{marvosym,textcomp,cancel,gensymb,pdflscape}
\usepackage{subfig}
\usepackage{float} % for the H specifier
\usepackage{amsmath, amsthm, amssymb}
\usepackage{listings}

\usepackage{hyperref}

% set up
\pagenumbering{arabic}
\pagestyle{headings}
\definecolor{dkgreen}{rgb}{0,0.5,0}

\lstset{language=Java, keywordstyle=\color{blue}, 
  commentstyle=\color{dkgreen},escapechar=|}

Answer 2

Ok, you seem to want to make your own figure environment. Note that LaTeX doesn't recognize such an environment automatically as a figure and somehow adds vertical space by itself. You need to add it manually using e.g. using \vspace{<length>} or \medskip/\bigskip etc. at the end of the environment. Adding a manual paragraph break using \par would also be something to consider.

\newenvironment{figurehere}
  {\def\@captype{figure}}
  {\par\medskip}% or \par\vspace{1ex} etc.