Help! I can't see my sample, the image is all black! (Or white)

Possible solutions:

1. Click the "Full Scale" button. This will set the brightest pixel in the scan to white and the darkest to black.

2. If that didn't help, and you see a few white pixels in your all-black image (or vice-versa): In this case, you probably have a few outlying pixels which mess up the contrast. Click the "Show Histogram" button, which shows you the brightness distribution of pixels in the image. Set the display minimum (green line, click the left mouse button) to the left of the "bulk" of the pixels, and the maximum (red line, right button) to the right. You can also manually play with the min and max. See Sec. 5.5.1 for details.

3. Make sure you display the correct signal. Unless you are an advanced user, you probably want to set the "Signal Type" to "Predefined Combinations" on both microscopes, and the "Detector / Display" to "Counter" on the outboard STXM and to "BF total" on the inboard STXM. Read Chap. 9 for details.