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Image capture in microscopy has largely gone digital. There are specific types of scientific film that are no longer being manufactured and most likely this trend will continue. Learning more about working with digital images is no longer optional or esoteric, it's practically mandatory.
Introduction to Digital Images
A brief overview of several important pieces of information about digital images. Some of the material is explained on this web page, but there are also selected links to resources elsewhere on the WWW. This page covers the following topics: pixels, resolution, bit-depth, color, file formats, and human vision.
According to surveys, a large number of microscopists use Adobe Photoshop for figure creation. There are other, less expensive alternatives, including a few free image analysis and/or editing programs. This page provides links to tips on using the more popular commercial image editing software, as well as links to several free software programs for image analysis and/or image editing.
Hardware related to digital imaging is constantly improving (at least we hope so). This page gives a brief overview and resources links for semiconductor-based cameras, scanners and printers.
This issue has become increasing high profile in science, especially in light of several recent cases of fraud involving digital images. One author referred to the problem in the context of "high crimes and misdemeanors". High crimes are obvious (in hindsight) attempts to mislead the reader. Misdemeanors are the common image processing mistakes made by well-meaning, but often inexperienced or ill-advised users. This essay (originally published in 2001) provides some context for the problem and 12 guidelines for the proper acquisition and manipulation of scientific digital images. This essay is also available in PDF format on the Handouts page.
