Natural Science Forum / Physics / Optics / January 2006

Of course. You can use ImageJ. Why not? - But you can also use Matlab.

A possible procedure could be as follows:

1) Get original image
2) Convert to more appropriate format (e.g. 8 bit data, uncompressed)
3) Invert the image
4) Threshold and smooth (this is image #1)
5) Run Watershed algorithm to obtain image #2 (only contains output from
Watershed algorithm)
6) Dilate the lines of image #2
7) Invert again image #2
8) Subtract from smoothed image (image #1 minus image #2)
9) Analyze cells by hand or by using a particle counter (see plugins for
ImageJ or Matlab)

Since Matlab and ImageJ provide decent Watershed algorihms, they are
preferred applications for this type of work.

That's it. Not difficult at all.

Gregor