title: Image Quality Ranking Method for Microscopy.
abstract: Automated analysis of microscope images is necessitated by the increased need for high-resolution follow up of events in time. Manually finding the right images to be analyzed, or eliminated from data analysis are common day-to-day problems in microscopy research today, and the constantly growing size of image datasets does not help the matter. We propose a simple method and a software tool for sorting images within a dataset, according to their relative quality. We demonstrate the applicability of our method in finding good quality images in a STED microscope sample preparation optimization image dataset. The results are validated by comparisons to subjective opinion scores, as well as five state-of-the-art blind image quality assessment methods. We also show how our method can be applied to eliminate useless out-of-focus images in a High-Content-Screening experiment. We further evaluate the ability of our image quality ranking method to detect out-of-focus images, by extensive simulations, and by comparing its performance against previously published, well-established microscopy autofocus metrics.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Biophysics, Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy, Institute of Biomedicine and Medicity Research Laboratories, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.
authors.forename: Sami
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Koho
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Biophysics, Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy, Institute of Biomedicine and Medicity Research Laboratories, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.
authors.forename: Elnaz
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Fazeli
authors.affiliation: Cell Biology, Biosciences, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Åbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland.|Turku Centre for Biotechnology, University of Turku and Åbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland.
authors.forename: John E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Eriksson
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Biophysics, Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy, Institute of Biomedicine and Medicity Research Laboratories, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.
authors.forename: Pekka E
authors.initials: PE
authors.lastname: Hänninen