jPOR: An ImageJ macro to quantify total optical porosity from blue-stained thin sections

A fast and effective method has been developed to measure total optical porosity (TOP) of blue resin-impregnated thin sections. This utilises a macro file (jPOR.txt) for ImageJ, which can be used on digital photomicrographs of thin sections. The method requires no specialised scientific equipment and can be run entirely using free to download software. Digital images are acquired from blue resin-impregnated thin sections using a conventional film scanner in the present study, though the technique can be applied to any high resolution colour digital acquired by different means (e.g., flat bed scanning, digital capture). Images are preprocessed using a newly developed custom 8-bit palette and analysed for porosity in ImageJ using the simple to use jPOR macro. Our method rapidly calculates TOP for batches of images with or without the option of user adjustment. Results are compared with conventional methods (e.g., to point counting), and tested with several users to estimate any user variability. jPOR provided comparable results to more time-consuming point counting, but with significantly less “counting error” and less interoperator variability than published point counting studies. The jPOR macro has been integrated into a macro tool set that can be configured to be run on ImageJ start up.