Phosphorimager Questions

[Peter Heifetz]

In article <D.J.Glover.34.000F3D3E at bham.ac.uk>, D.J.Glover at bham.ac.uk
(David Glover) wrote:

>                       I am using a Molecular Dynamics Phosphorimager to 
> obtain quantitative data from northern blots. I have a couple of questions 
> that other users around me have been unable to answer to my satisfaction.
> 

[snip]
> 
>                       My second question regards the production of a 
> publication quality hardcopy of the image. I vaguely remember some discussion 
> on this newsgroup about this a long time ago.If I remember rightly the best 
> solution anybody offered was to expose the blot to an autorad. after exposure 
> to the phosphor screen and photograph it. 

[snip]

Try this:
   - scan cassette at the highest resolution (88 microns)
   - bring the image into your favorite TIFF-friendly draw program,
annotate,etc.
   - print on 600 dpi laserprinter (we use HP 4M+) using glossy HP plotter paper
   - (it is still better to do an autorad and scan at 300 dpi, though. 
These come out even better than the "Phosporimages" using the
glossy-paper-trick. At first glance you can't tell it from a photo print.)

   [I can't take credit for this, it was suggested by the Molecular
Dynamics tech rep who came to demo a Fluorimager we didn't buy]

-- 
Peter Heifetz
Duke University
Developmental, Cell, and Molecular Biology Group