Systems and methods for automatically identifying and characterizing one or more lanes in image data for one or more electrophoresed samples. The method includes receiving data representing an image of one or more electrophoresed samples, segmenting the data into one or multiple data segments or portions within a region of interest (ROI), wherein the one or multiple data segments represent (e.g., when visually displayed) one or multiple lane segments along a first axis in the ROI, each of the one or multiple lane segments traversing one or multiple lanes in the image data, generating an intensity profile for at least a first data segment of the one or multiple data segments along a second axis orthogonal to the first axis, and processing the intensity profile to determine a location and parameters for each of one or multiple lanes in the first data segment.