The primary responsibility of the clinical electron microscopy laboratory is to produce, and deliver to the pathologist or clinician, high quality ultrastructural images of pathological specimens in a timely manner. In order to facilitate this process, medical EM labs are converting from traditional chemical processing of photographic film and paper to the acquisition and transmission of electron images by computer. Ideally the electron microscope would incorporate a digital camera in the column to collect the images, thus bypassing chemical processing of film and paper altogether. However, due mainly to the high cost of the in-column cameras, many labs continue to use film, but replace the time consuming enlarging/printing in the darkroom with digital techniques at the computer.