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The LabCanvas Pixel editor: edit micrographs and photos inside your figure

How to adjust microscopy images and photos in the LabCanvas Pixel editor: crop, levels, curves and exposure, false-colour lookup tables, healing and clone stamp, selections and masks, with an edit log for your methods section.

By LabCanvas team1 min read
The LabCanvas Pixel editor adjusting levels and curves on a six-panel figure of micrographs
Pixel editor in LabCanvas. Open it in your browser.
Contents

The LabCanvas Pixel editor edits the raster images in a figure, such as micrographs, gels and photos, without leaving the figure. It has crop, levels, curves and exposure, false-colour lookup tables, healing and clone stamp, selections and masks, and it keeps a log of every edit for your methods section. The edits flow back into the figure layer.

What it is for

  • Micrographs: crop to the region of interest, set levels so the signal fills the range, apply a lookup table.
  • Multi-panel figures: apply the same adjustments to every panel so the images stay comparable.
  • Photos of setups and samples: straighten, crop, correct exposure, remove dust from the background.

Tools

ToolWhat it does
Crop and rotateFrame the region of interest, straighten the image
Levels and curvesSet black and white points and the tone curve
ExposureBrightness, contrast and exposure
Lookup tablesFalse-colour maps for single-channel images
Healing and clone stampRetouch photos of setups (not data)
Selections and masksLimit an adjustment to part of a photo
Edit logEvery edit listed, for the methods section

How to adjust a micrograph for a figure

  1. Place the image in your figure, right-click it and choose to edit it (or open the Pixel editor).
  2. Crop to the region of interest.
  3. Use Levels so the signal uses the full range without clipping.
  4. Apply a lookup table if the image is a single channel.
  5. Go back to the figure; the panel is updated. Copy the edit log into your methods.

Image integrity

Scientific images are data. Adjust the whole image evenly, keep the original file, never remove or add features in a data image, and describe the processing. The edit log makes the last step easy. The editorial guidelines explain how LabCanvas handles accuracy in its own content.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to leave my figure to edit an image?
No. Right-click an image in the Figure editor and choose to edit it, or switch to the Pixel editor; the edits flow back into the figure layer.
Which adjustments are there?
Crop, rotate, levels, curves, exposure, brightness and contrast, and false-colour lookup tables, plus healing, clone stamp, selections and masks.
Is it acceptable to edit microscopy images for a paper?
Journals accept adjustments applied to the whole image (levels, contrast, colour maps) that do not hide or change features; retouching parts of a data image is generally not acceptable. Check your journal’s image integrity policy and report the adjustments in the methods.
What is the edit log for?
It lists every edit applied to an image, so you can describe the processing in your methods section and repeat it on other images.
Can I edit several panels the same way?
Yes. Apply the same adjustments to every panel so that the images stay comparable, as journals expect.
microscopy image editingimage processingfigure preparationlookup tablesimage integrityPhotoshop alternative

Try it in LabCanvas

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Open Pixel editor