Count-On-It: The Best Colony Counting Software for Fiji/ImageJ

The Circus feature in the Count-On-It plugin is a convenient tool for colony counting of standard agar plates. Colonies are detected by brightness, which is enhanced when using fluorescent filter sets, and can be further distinguished by selecting from a single channel. Circus is well suited for batch processing folders of plate images, producing a .csv file with the colony count and associated notes, as well as a graphic 'receipt' depicting the counting method. This Fiji/ImageJ plugin is capable of segmenting tightly packed colonies, allowing for accurate counting of thousands of colonies on a single plate, depending on colony size.

The Gridiron feature of the Count-On-It plugin is custom built for efficient colony counting of 96-spot plates. This method measures CFUs by placing droplets of inoculum in a grid using a 96-channel pipette, allowing for up to 96 samples to be cultivated on a single rectangular plate. Gridiron produces a results table that details the colony count for each cell on the plate and also generates a 'receipt' to visualize, verify, and record the counting results. Serial dilutions can be performed across multiple plates or within a single plate, making the software particularly well suited for batch processing images using the Fiji/ImageJ plugin.