TSView Black Balance (TSView Version 7.1.1.2 Beta Preview)

The quality of the images captured by the microscope camera is greatly affected by the image aquisition software.  We have used Tucsen camera to take photos for various subjects under microscopes.  The quality of the images taken by Tucsen microscope camera was affected by the bundled TSView software.  We previously have found the difficulty of using Tucsen's camera for taking photos of summerville lace agate (contains mainly quartz) under polarized light.  In the previous release, TSView only provides the option of white balance.  This caused the color to be out of balance because the background is black under polarized light.  .  It is very difficult to adjust the software manually by changing RGB values, contrast, gamma and gain.  To set up the combination of these settings correctly can be a real challenge.  The manufacturer of the Tucsen microscope, Tucsen Imaging Technology, came up with a new option of black balance (Figure 1) which is designed to alleviate the trouble of using the manual settings.  This post is the first look of the black balance of the new TSView 7.1.1.2 beta using Tucsen 3.3MP CCD TCC-3.3ICE-N digial microscope camera.

Figure 1. Quick BlackBalance is added to "White Balance" Menu.

Figure 2. Comparison of the images of summerville lace agate at 40X under polarized light with and without black balance performed.  On the left is the image captured without black balance.  The color of the background showed too much blue and the agate showed light blue color tone.  After the black balance was performed (as the picture illustrated on the right), the background was dark without the blue color tone.  The lace agate also shows the brownish color due the the color of the agate and the Tungston light source.

Figure 3. Another picture of the summerville lace agate at 100X using black balance

Figure 4. The image the summerville lace agate at 100X under polarized light with some manual adjustments.

Although the black balance showed better color palette resembled the actual color, the color seems to be somewhat dull.  We have decided to make some small manual adjustment to the settings by descreasing the gain and increasing the exposure time.  In the meantime, I also increased the contrast and decreased the gamma value.  The outcome is outstanding: the color is vivid and truthful and the background is nice and dark.

Figure 5. Image of beach sand under polarized light.

I took another picture of beach sand collected from send key beach, FL.  The results were similar to the summerville lace agate. The color of the sand were bright and vivid.  The background shows somewhat brighter due to the interference from the tape (rather than the slide).

Additional new settings of the new version includes the ability of adjusting the preview resolution and the capture resolution.  This is very useful when you have a very dark specimen, such as the fluorescent or polarized light.  Looking at the preview screen at lower resolution allows you to get the image focus quicker while capturing the images at higher resolution.  At the time of testing, this feature does not seems to function properly.  The resolution of the captured images is still the same as the previewed image.  We were hoping Tucsen to have this problem fixed before the final production release.

Figure 6. Preview and Capture Resolution

Overall, we are very happen about the new black balance feature.  It eliminates the needs to do manually adjustments, particularly RGB values.  Although the black balance was able to show better color palette, it still requires some minor manual adjustments.  (i.e. Perform black balance -> reduce gain and increase exposure time -> increase contrast and reduce gamma correction value).