Plastic support films. Carbon and carbon-coated support films. Preparation of hydrophilic films by glow discharge. Other support films. Negative staining. Visualization of nucleic acids. Sample preparation by rapid freezing. Pretreatment of subcellular components. Pretreatment of cells. Freezing methods. Air-dried or freeze dried, metal-shadowed specimens. Freeze fracturing and freeze etching. Sample preparation for thin sectioning. Chemical fixation. Dehydration, infiltration and embedding. Ultramicrotomy. Post-staining of sections. Cryo-ultamicrotomy. Localization of macromolecules. Preparation of marker systems for localization procedures. Localization procedures. Control experiments in immunocytochemistry. Labelling of epitopes on isolated protein molecules. Imaging and image evaluation at the transmission electron microscope. Stereo images. Standard specimen preparation. Preparation of a specimen for SEM. Quantitation of results (surface area, particle counting). Densitograms. Markham rotation.