Software question.

[Judge]

When I photograph slides, I place a scale such as “I________I = 30 um” on the photo.
I have to do this manually. Is there software available to do this automatically?
All suggestions are appreciated.

[MichaelG.]

Most of the software provided for digital microscope cameras has that facility … so may we assume that you are using a ‘normal’ camera for your microscope imaging ?

The good news is that many of those programs, although they may not accept other cameras as live sources, will allow you to work on existing images from your library.

MichaelG.

[SuiGenerisBrewing]

ImageJ is a free image processing software package that has this capability. You will need to know the pixels-per-micron scalining for your microscope, which can easily be determined using a micrometer. To add a scale bar:

1. Load the image
2. Under the "Analyze" menu select the "Set Scale...", then enter your calibration data (note: for most cameras, the "Pixel Ratio" will be 1.0 - as in the pixels are square).
3. Under "Analyze" select "Tools" then "Scale Bar". You can move, resize, set the colour, etc, of your scale bar using the interface. One note: Most image display programs (including web browsers) cannot handle Overlays, so make sure to deselect that option. Deselecting that option "hard-codes" the scale bar in the image, while selecting it creates a new layer containing the scale bar.
4. Because ImageJ is a scientific image processing program its default output format is an uncompressed TIFF. For most uses you'll want to save as a PNG or JPEG, options for which can be found under the "File -->Save As" menu

ImageJ can be downloaded from https://imagej.nih.gov/ij/

Bryan

[Judge]

Entering the measurement scale “automatically” on a photo is not working. My microscope is calibrated with an eyepiece scale so I have all of the the information needed for a scale. How can I manually put a measurement scale on the bottom of a photo? Example “I________I = 30 um” .
Thanks.