The capture of microscopic images with confocal depth of field is often challenging for histologists and parasitologists. This is particularly true when photographing thick sections or 3-dimensional protozoan or metazoan parasites. Several desktop software programs, including Adobe Photoshop TM and NIH Image, permit digital capture and manipulation of (exciting) photographic images. Different focal plane images may be composited to show detail and sense of depth. For example, organisms such as ciliates or trematodes are photographed at high magnification in different focal planes. Compositing these separate focal plane images produces a final picture with key features in focus. These features include the girdle of telotrich ciliature and the spiral of oral ciliature for peritrichous ciliates, and eyespots, hooks and embryo for monogenetic trematodes. In addition, a variety of digital filters may be applied to images to sharpen, mask, adjust brightness, contrast, hue and saturation, and create backgrounds. System requirements, exemplified use of Macintosh software with fish parasite images, and output to printer and Ektachrome slides will be discussed.