Color accuracy and reproducibility in whole slide imaging scanners

In this paper, we propose a work-flow for color reproduction in whole slide imaging (WSI) scanners such that the colors in the scanned images match to the actual slide color and the inter scanner variation is minimum. We describe a novel method of preparation and verification of the color phantom slide, consisting of a standard IT8- target transmissive film, which is used in color calibrating and profiling the WSI scanner. We explore several ICC compliant techniques in color calibration/profiling and rendering intents for translating the scanner specific colors to the standard display (sRGB) color-space. Based on the quality of color reproduction in histopathology tissue slides, we propose the matrix-based calibration/profiling and absolute colorimetric rendering approach. The main advantage of the proposed work-ow is that it is compliant to the ICC standard, applicable to color management systems in different platforms, and involves no external color measurement devices. We measure objective color performance using CIE-DeltaE2000 metric, where DeltaE values below 1 is considered imperceptible. Our evaluation 14 phantom slides, manufactured according to the proposed method, show an average inter-slide color difference below 1 DeltaE. The proposed work-flow is implemented and evaluated in 35 Philips Ultra Fast Scanners (UFS). The results show that the average color difference between a scanner and the reference is 3.5 DeltaE, and among the scanners is 3.1 DeltaE. The improvement on color performance upon using the proposed method is apparent on the visual color quality of the tissues scans.