Editing Camera lucida (section)

==Microscopy==
As recently as the 1980s, the ''camera lucida'' was still a standard tool of [[microscope|microscopists]].<ref name=":0" />  It is still a key tool in the field of palaeontology. Until very recently, [[photomicrograph]]s were expensive to reproduce. Furthermore, in many cases, a clear illustration of the structure that the microscopist wished to document was much easier to produce by drawing than by micrography. Thus, most routine histological and microanatomical illustrations in textbooks and research papers were ''camera lucida'' drawings rather than photomicrographs. The ''camera lucida'' is still used as the most common method among neurobiologists for drawing brain structures, although it is recognised to have limitations. "For decades in cellular neuroscience, camera lucida hand drawings have constituted essential illustrations. (...) The limitations of camera lucida can be avoided by the procedure of digital reconstruction".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Giorgio A. Ascoli |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn1885 |title=Mobilizing the base of neuroscience data: the case of neuronal morphologies |date=April 2006 |journal=Nature Reviews. Neuroscience |volume=7 |page=319 |doi=10.1038/nrn1885 |pmid=16552417 |issue=4 |s2cid=7953115 |access-date=April 26, 2023 |archive-date=May 3, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230503152810/https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn1885 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }}</ref> Of particular concern is distortion, and new digital methods are being introduced which can limit or remove this, "computerized techniques result in far fewer errors in data transcription and analysis than the camera lucida procedure".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=T.J. DeVoogd |url=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6163933 |title=Distortions induced in neuronal quantification by camera lucida analysis: Comparisons using a semi-automated data acquisition system |date=February 1981 |journal=Journal of Neuroscience Methods |others=et al |volume=3 |pages=285–294 |doi=10.1016/0165-0270(81)90064-9 |pmid=6163933 |issue=3 |s2cid=31921940 |access-date=April 26, 2023 |archive-date=May 2, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230502223627/https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6163933/ |url-status=live }}</ref> It is also regularly used in [[biological taxonomy]].