Effect of the virtual beam collection area on the final EBSD-DF image contrast around a micro-hardness indent in a stress relief annealed non-oriented Si–Fe electrical steel with collection area of (A) 2×2 (0.22° collection angle), (B) 4×4 (0.36° collection angle), (C) 8×8 (0.65° collection angle), and (D) 16×16 (1.22° collection angle). (E) Plot of the contrast C between the points of highest and lowest grey value extracted from the line profile drawn in the top right insert (white arrow). (F) Reference EBSP showing the location of the virtual beam collection area centre point corresponding to the (121) reflection (white arrow). Optimum collection area was 4×4, corresponding to a square of 141 µm width on the phosphorescent screen.