Composing microscopic images of very high resolution from several parts posed some problems. One of them was the necessity to adjust the focusing level when moving from one part to another. Re-focusing lead to problems with joining the image parts, which did not correspond exactly, and the area of image fusion was noticeable. A computer program was developed to overcome these problems. Our program worked with all the image parts together to find their optimal order for image fusion. Individual image parts were joined using a steep gradient running along a randomly generated curve. This method gave good results even in images with background or holes in the tissue. The method of composing large images from individual parts was used for digitizing the skin lymphoma collection of the Institute of Dermatology, University Hospital, Zürich. This collection of digital images is a part of the 6th version of Hypertext atlas of Dermatopathology at www.muni.cz/atlases.

        Key words: digital microphotography - image analysis - interactive atlas - dermatopathology - hypertext