A number of software features related to file saving are accessed by clicking on the File panel tab to display the panel at the front of the settings panel group. Among the File panel features are options that allow the user to specify an image format, filename, and designated saving location, as well as to choose to automatically save or print an image immediately upon capture.

When a number of images are being acquired and saved in one microscopy session, the most efficient mechanism for capturing and saving them is to specify the destination folder (directory), filename and image format in advance. Saving an image is then accomplished by simply clicking on the Save button in the tool bar after image capture, or if automatic saving is enabled (described below), by clicking on the Capture button alone. The File settings panel (Figure 1) is utilized to specify a folder and filename, and to choose from six different file formats for the saved image data. This panel also includes a DriveInfo button that displays capacity and usage information for any drive attached to the computer system in a Drive Information dialog box (Figure 2).

Photomicrographs captured digitally by the Digital Sight camera system may be saved in any of six different file formats, chosen from the following list in the Format pull-down menu (see Figure 1): JPEG (Fine, Normal, and Basic), BMP, TIF, and JPEG 2000. The JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) format produces relatively small file sizes through data compression, and is convenient for images that are destined to be posted on the Web or transmitted by email or file transfer protocol (FTP). Three levels of file compression are provided in the pull-down menu through different implementations of the JPEG algorithm: fine (highest resolution), normal (standard resolution), and basic (lowest resolution). The JPEG 2000 format is a recent version of the compression algorithm that may be utilized by some image processing software applications. Higher resolution files should be saved in either TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) or BMP (Windows Bitmap) format, which are compression-free formats capable of storing files without any loss of image information, an advantage for high-resolution images that will ultimately be printed or published, or which will be subjected to additional digital processing. Image file sizes range from less than 100 kilobytes for highly compressed JPEG files to approximately 15 megabytes for the highest resolution TIFF and BMP files.

The File Name portion of the File panel is utilized to specify file name and folder for captured images. Adjacent to the Image Folder input field, a Browse button (labeled ..., Figure 1) may be clicked with the mouse to open a Browse for Folder dialog box. The desired image file folder is selected from the directory listing, followed by clicking the OK button. Alternatively, the name of the target directory can be typed into the text field directly rather than being selected through the browse feature. After clicking in the Prefix text box, any character string or appropriate variables may be entered as a filename prefix. By clicking the Body text box, filename-matching variables that correspond to the date, time, and an image serial number can be assigned as a file name. The Apply button must be selected in order for the entered variables to take effect. The default file storage settings for the File panel are C:\Image for the folder and Img_$### for the individual image files, which may be restored by clicking on the Default button. The filename matching variables listed below are allowed by the software, and provide considerable flexibility in filename assignment:

• $YYYY - Year specification utilizing all four digits as in 1999 or 2000.

• $YY - Year specification utilizing an abbreviation of only the last two digits as in 99 or 00.

• $MMM - Month specification stored as a three-letter abbreviation, such as JAN, FEB, MAR, etc.

• $MM - Month specification abbreviated as a two digit number as in 01 for January and 10 for October.

• $DD - Two-digit day specification for each day of the month.

• $HH - Two-digit hour specification ranging from 1 to 24 hours, such as 06 (6:00 AM) or 18 (6:00 PM).

• $hh - Hour specification using lower case letters for a 12-hour period ranging from 1 to 12 (either AM or PM).

• $mm - Minutes specification using lower case letters for a 60-minute period ranging from 1 through 60 for each hour.

• $ss - Seconds specification using lower case letters for a 60-second period ranging from 1 through 60 for each minute.

• $### - An individual three-digit serial number for each file within the same folder (directory), such as 001, 002, 003, etc.

• $## - An individual two-digit serial number for each file within the same folder (directory), such as 01, 02, 03, etc.

• $### - An individual one-digit serial number for each file within the same folder (directory), such as 1, 2, 3, etc.

As an example, the first image recorded on February 28, 2000 with the filename variable specification $YY$MM$DD_$### would be assigned the filename 000228_001 during saving. Use of this system ensures a unique filename for each image captured, regardless of how many images are stored during a particular period of time. A new folder named to indicate the date will automatically be created every day when the first image is saved that day if the following filename-matching variables are utilized to assign a filename: $YY$MM$DD\Img_$###. This provides further organization of images by automatically classifying them according to date captured. In using this file naming scheme, it is essential that the backslash character is included following the $DD string.

After file saving parameters have been specified, image capture itself is controlled through the exposure control portion of the main ACT-1 control window, illustrated separately in Figure 3. The size of the captured image is selected from four choices in the Size pull-down menu. This basic image size can be further adjusted by selecting a resize percentage from the Resize pull-down list. By combining the two image size controls, a large number of final output sizes are available, and this value will be indicated as Output Size in the window display. Clicking on the Capture button will capture the image at the exposure time indicated by the digital display, and if auto saving has been selected by check box in the File panel, the image is automatically saved in the pre-selected destination folder. If the auto save feature has not been chosen, the image is saved by clicking the Save button on the main window tool bar, or by selecting Save from the File menu after image capture has occurred.

If the user attempts to save a file in a folder (directory) under a filename that is identical to a file already stored in the folder, the Windows Overwrite dialog box appears to present a choice of overwriting the file or canceling the operation. Click on the Yes button to overwrite the existing file or the Cancel button to close the dialog box and abort the operation. In order to save the file under a different name, click on the No button and the File Save dialog box appears, allowing the user to select a new filename.

If a microscopy session is likely to require saving only one or a small number of digital images, it may be more convenient to specify the directory (folder), filename, and file format at the time of saving each individual image. This is accomplished by first clicking on File in the ACT-1 software main window menu bar, then selecting the Save As option from the pull-down list (Figure 4). The standard Windows File Save dialog box opens, and by clicking on the down-arrow button to the right of the Save in field, the saving location can be selected from the hard drive directory tree. After clicking in the File name text field, the desired file name can be typed, and a format for the image file can be chosen from the Save as type pull-down list. Clicking the Save button finalizes the storage of the image to the selected destination.