Lucy stains are suitable for staining proteins on polyacrylamide gels and offer a reliable, convenient, and economic alternative to silver staining techniques and other fluorescent staining methods. Additionally, Lucy stains require less staining time than SYPRO Ruby stain. LUCY-506 shows the highest sensitivity, LUCY-565 allows neutral gel-staining (e.g. before Western blotting), and LUCY-569 excels with the demonstration of a linear response over an extraordinary broad linear dynamic range.