1.

Turn on camera (Figs. 1A and 1B). Make sure the slider on the microscope is pulled out (Fig. 1C) or the switch is set to the camera position (Fig. 1D) to allow light to reach the camera.

2.

Open Image Capture software on computer and login with username, password, and expedition number.

3.

Select the sample by clicking on Browse (red box, Fig. 2). You can search by sample type, analysis type (Test List Selectors), or both (green boxes, Fig. 2).
Select the sample from the sample list (blue box, Fig. 2) and close the browser window. The selected sample shows up above the image pane on the main screen (purple box, Fig. 2)

4.

On the main screen, select objective, filters, light source, contrast method, and illumination method (orange boxes, Fig. 2).

5.

Click on Acquire (yellow box, Fig. 2) to bring up the image capture window, which shows a live image from the microscope. If you have a settings profile (purple box, Fig. 3) saved, be sure it is selected.
–You can adjust the image using the sliders under Gamma, Contrast, and Saturation (orange boxes, Fig. 3).
–You can adjust exposure settings, image capture area, and focus area (green box, Fig. 3; see Image Capture User Guide for details). *NOTE: You must use Full Chip as your image area or the scale bar will be incorrect.

6.

When you are happy with your image, click Acquire (red box, Fig. 3). The image capture window closes after the image is acquired. The new image appears in the main window (Fig. 4) of the Image Capture program.

Select the correct objective and Optovor (upright microscope) or magnification wheel (stero microscope) combination from the drop down list under "Objective" (orange boxes, Fig. 2). The scale bar will be automatically calculated and added to the image by the software upon upload. If the settings on the microscope differ from those selected, the scale bar will be incorrect. You must have selected full chip before you acquired the image for correct scale bar calculation.

For a detailed explanation of the process

click the link to the page Image Capture: Image Scaling_378P

8.

If you are happy with the image, click Upload (red box, Fig. 4) to upload the image to the LIMS database.
Note: you can add comments (yellow box, Fig. 4) such as species name or other pertinent information.

9.

The image disappears after upload; however, you can get it back by clicking on the Objective drop-down menu. If you want to save a copy to a local folder, click on Export (green box, Fig. 4).
Note: this only saves a copy of the jpeg image; a high-resolution tiff is saved in the database and can be accessed through LIMS Reports (LORE).

10.

Check to see if your image was saved in the LIMS database through LIMS Reports (LORE).