The åCOLyte automated colony counter features LED arrays to facilitate detection of colonies on difficult to visualize agar plates. The two arrays of LEDs allow incident, transmitted and dark field illumination. The compact system has software with a web-styled user interface, which generates live, full color images that can be saved and printed to create reports. Two levels of functionality are provided: Click'n'Count and SuperCount. Using Click'n'Count, counting involves pointing at a colony and clicking, which eliminates error prone keying-in steps. With SuperCount, at the touch of a button, the system automatically corrects for background variations and different media types, while it counts up to 500 colonies per second.