Multi-well plates are viewed one well at a time with simple zoom and ‘panning’ controls providing intuitive image navigation so that any region can be quickly viewed at high resolution for close-up verification of colony detection. Detected colonies are highlighted by red, size-proportional markers. The current colony count and related colony statistics such as mean colony diameter are displayed in a summary panel in the left margin.

Not only does GelCount automatically detect and count colonies but it is also capable of calculating and presenting in histogram format a unique set of statistical distributions, such as for colony size and OD per well or dish. Histogram data can be manually or automatically exported in bitmap or in Excel®-compatible raw data formats.

Colony detection is fully user-definable from within the novel 'CHARM Optimizer' utility, which allows adjustment of numerous sensitivity and shape-related parameters and, crucially the ability to include or exclude colonies based on size.

The effect of any such adjustments can be quickly previewed and parameters stored for re-use in future experiments. GelCount achieves outstanding counting proportionality and reproducibility by objective and consistent application of these user-defined settings.

GelCount's data storage options are plentiful, from basic colony counts and mean per-well/dish colony statistics to full digital image archiving and per-colony raw data exportation. Summary data, including colony counts and colony statistic means are exported directly into Microsoft Excel®.

Images of colony plates or dishes can be saved in a general-purpose bitmap format (for printing, presentations etc) or in a raw image format, which supports processing or re-processing of samples in ‘off-line’ mode on any independent workstation with the software installed.