Polaroid DCM 2 Online Technical manual

Online User Guide
DMC 2

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Contents
Navigating in This Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
DMC 2 Camera Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Taking Pictures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Typical Picture-Taking Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Turning the Camera On . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Starting the DMC 2 Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Selecting a DMC Camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Framing and Focusing the Preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Choosing a Capture Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Choosing Color or Grayscale Preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Rotating the Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Enlarging the Preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Setting Exposure Automatically . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

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Calibrating Auto Exposure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Setting Exposure Manually . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Setting Sensitivity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Selecting Color Temperature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Creating a Custom Color Temperature Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Selecting Image Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Selecting Image Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Image File Sizes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Verifying Sharp Focus Digitally. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Capturing the Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Capturing a Rapid Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Printing the Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Enhancing the Image with DMC 2 Software . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Automatically Adjusting Color Balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Adjusting Color Balance by Selecting a Whitepoint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Adjusting Color Balance by Selecting a Neutral Gray Point . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
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Adjusting Color Balance by Selecting a Blackpoint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Manually Adjusting Color Balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Manually Adjusting Dark Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Manually Adjusting Brightness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Adjusting Gamma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Viewing a Histogram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Adjusting Sharpness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Viewing the Full Image. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Reducing Grain in Long Exposures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Adding a Label . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Adding a Calibrated Micron Marker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Creating a Calibrated Micron Marker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Deleting a Calibrated Micron Marker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Saving and Reusing Program Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Program Settings You Can Save . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
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Setting DMC 2 Software Preferences. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
General Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Remote Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Output Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Camera Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Using the Color Stacker Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Creating a Composite Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Color Stacker Preview Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Camera Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Cleaning the Camera Optics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Cleaning the Camera Body . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Obtaining Software Updates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
DMC 2 Camera Specifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
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System Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
PC Minimum System Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Macintosh Minimum System Requirements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Installing Software and Setting Up the Camera . . . . . . . . . . 105
Unpacking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Installing the DMC 2 Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Attaching the Camera to the Microscope. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Connecting the Camera to the Computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Connecting the Camera to AC Power and Turning On . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Taking a Test Picture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Camera Limited Warranty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Radio and Television Interference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Copyright and Trademark Notices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
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Polaroid Offices and Service Centers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Technical Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Solving SCSI Communication Problems. . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Changing Sync Transfer Rate on Some Adaptec SCSI Adapters . . . . . 138
Installing a SCSI Host Adapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

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Navigating in This Document
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DMC 2 Camera Features
The Polaroid DMC 2 Digital Microscope Camera captures high-quality digital color
images from light microscopes and other optical instruments. The camera uses a 2-
million-pixel, 11mm CCD (charge coupled device) to capture 14-bit linear RGB
images. It transfers these images in seconds to an IBM PC or Power Macintosh com-
patible computer in TIFF format with 1600x1200 or 800x600 pixels. On IBM PC com-
patible systems, an additional image size of 400x300 is available.