Radiographic Image Quality

Name: Chaitali Mahabal

Date: 12/04/2025
 CONTENTS

Image quality

Viewing of images

Factors influencing image quality

Exposure factors

Other technical factors

 INTRODUCTION:

IMAGE: An image is a picture that has been created or copied and stored in

electronic form.

 An optical appearance

 A form or resemblance

 A mental representation

 An idea or conception
 VIEWING OF IMAGES

1) By reflected light from a surface

Reflected light is any light that has been bounced off of an object
before we see it.
Viewing of reflected light from a surfaces

• The surfaces contains pigments which reflect varying amounts of

light incident upon them. Any text and illustration of the book are all
viewed by reflected light and the absorbent pigment used is ink.

• Light falling on dark pigment is mostly absorbed, little is reflected/

light falling on white pigment is mostly reflected, little is absorbed.

• Image viewed in this way is called prints.

2) By transmitted light

The light that has been transmitted through a transparent

medium.
Viewing by light transmitted through a
semitransparent layer

• The layer contain pigment which transmit varying amounts or

colors of the light incident upon them. The image on a
conventional radiograph is viewed by transmitted light. In this
case light-absorbing pigment is metallic silver.

• Light falling on pigment free transparent area is mostly

transmitted but less is in pigmented area.

• Image viewed in this way is called transparency.

3)Emitted light

• Emitted light is a light from the sun, it's light from anything that makes the
light itself.
Cont...
• Exposure to x-rays or to an electron beam stimulates the fluorescent material
to emit varying amounts of light. The fluoroscopic screen image and the
image on the television screen are produced in this way.

• It depends on intensity beam:

High intensity, high emission or low emitted light in low intensity.
IMAGE QUALITY:

The image quality is defined as the ability of the film to record each

point in the object as a point on the film.

RADIOGRAPHIC IMAGE QUALITY:

The Radiographic image quality denotes the visibility and sharpness of the

images and it’s structural details.

FACTORS INFLUENCING RADIOGRAPHIC IMAGE
QUALITY

 Density
 Noise
 Contrast
 Sharpness
 Resolution
 Magnification & Distortion

Exposure Factors
 Milliampere seconds
 Kilovoltage
 Focus to film distance
 Secondary radiation Grids
1. DENSITY
• Amount of darkening on an x-ray film
• Depends on:
Amount of radiation reaching particular area of film.
• Density is measured by densitometer

• Density = Incident light intensity falling on the film

Transmitted light intensity
• 5 FACTORS

o Kilovoltage
o Milliamperage
o Time
o Distance
o Thickness and nature of part being examined
KILOVOLTAGE PEAK

Increase in kV

Increase in percentage of higher energy photons

Thus not absorbed by structures being radiographed.

Large fraction of primary radiation reaches the intensifying

screen

Hence increase in density

MILLIAMPERAGE

• X-ray output (R/min) is proportional to mA.

• Hence doubling mA,doubles exposure rate.
• Therefore increases density.

TIME
• Increase in exposure time , increase in number of photons
reaching intensifying screen.
• Hence longer exposure time, increases density of radiograph
DISTANCE / INVERSE SQUARE LAW

• The decrease in intensity of light is inversely

proportional to square of distance of object from the
source.

I1 /I 2 =( d2 /d 1 ) 2

• Exposure rate of radiation at given distance from a

point source(film focus distance)is inversely
proportional to square of distance(FFD).
THICKNESS AND NATURE OF PART

Thicker and denser the part being examined, less will be radiographic density

2. Noise
Noise is any signal that does not convey useful information of the subject.

Signal to noise ratio (SNR):

Optimum condition :magnitude of signal > magnitude of noise

Signal to noise ratio is low: loss of information

3. Contrast

• The brightness ratio of the lightest to the

darkest part of an image or difference in density
or luminance
• BOUNDRY BETWEEN DARK AND LIGHT
AREA APPEAR SHARPLY.

TYPES:

HIGH CONTRAST

LOW CONTRAST

OPTIMUM CONTRAST
High contrast

High contrast appears harsh, with lots of dense blacks and

brilliant white
Low contrast
• Contrast level at a minimum
• Image appear dull, lacking in any true black and whites
Optimum contrast
• Optimum contrast level tends to be neither very high nor
very low and is different for different subjects
4. SHARPNESS

Sharpness is concerned with how suddenly blackening

changes at the boundary between adjacent part.
UNSHARPNESS

• The inability of film screen system to record the sharp edge.

• Image unsharpness may be expressed in following ways:

 Edge spread function.
 Point spread function.
 Line spread function.
EDGE SPREAD FUNCTION

• The variation in the image density across a boundary is called

edge spread function
POINT SPREAD FUNCTION

• Point spread function is the lack of sharpness that results when

the point in an object is not reproduced as true
LINE SPREAD FUNCTION

• Describes the unsharpness when a line of an object is not

produced as an image
5. RESOLUTION

• It is the ability of the system to demonstrate closely spaced structures in

the subject as separate entities in the image
• Spatial resolution- ability to demonstrate separate images of two objects
placed together
• Ex- bone- soft tissue interface, breast micro-calcification, calcified lung
nodule.
• Contrast resolution- ability to image anatomic structures of only slightly
different densities from its surroundings
• Ex- liver –spleen & gray matter- white matter.

Lower noise results in a better radiographic

image, because it improves contrast
resolution.
Modulated transfer function

• MTF is the most commonly used method of

describing spatial resolution ability.
• MTF is the ratio of the accuracy of the image
compared with actual object scanned.
• The method of assessing how well the details
of an object are transferred into the density
variation in an image
• If the image reproduced the object exactly, the
MTF would have a value of 1 and if the image
is blank then MTF would have a value of 0
 DENSITY CONTRAST RESOLUTION
kVp Directly Inversely Inversely
proportional proportional
mAs Directly Directly directly
proportional proportional
THICKNESS Inversely inversely inversely
proportional
FFD inversely inversely inversely
SID inversely inversely inversely
FOCAL SPOT directly inversely inversely
SIZE
6. MAGNIFICATION

• All images on the radiograph which are larger than the object they
represent, a condition called magnification.
• Magnification is expressed by the magnification factor.
• MF= Image size/Object size.
• For most radiographs taken at SID of 100 cm, MF is 1.1 & for SID 180 cm MF
is 1.05.

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31
7. DISTORTION
• In radiographic image , does not faithfully represents the
anatomic parts but differs from varying degrees of size and
shape, such misrepresentation of the true size and shape of an
object is called Distortion.

Three conditions contribute to image distortion:

• Object thickness- Thick objects are more distorted than thin
objects.
• Object position- If the object plane & image plane are not
parallel, distortion occurs.
• Object shape- Object blur is caused by object shape.

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1. SIZE DISTORTION:

 Size distortion usually refers to

magnification which is caused by

progressive divergence (Spread)

of the x-ray in the beam.

 OID, SOD and SID can affect size

distortion or magnification. Fig: Size distortion or image

magnification.
 Magnification is the ratio between

the size of the image and the size

of the object.
2. SHAPE DISTORTION:

 Shape distortion is sometimes

Anode

referred to as "true distortion".

 It's defined as the misrepresen-

tation of the shape (length or

width) of an object. This is

caused by beam/part alignment.

Fig: Shape Distortion.

Distortion (object Distortion (x-ray
& film not parallel) beam not 35

centered over
Minimizing Distortion

• Object is near to the central part of the x-ray beam.

• Object is placed as close to the film as possible.

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8. EXPOSURE FACTORS

kVp
• Determines the penetrating power.

• A low kVp results in higher contrast as it is easily absorbed resulting in

greater difference in density. This leads to more black and white and less
gray.
• High kVp results in low contrast. This leads to more shades of gray.

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 60 kVp 50 kVp

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40 kVp 30 kVp
 mAs

• Determines the quantity of the primary x-ray beam.

• A direct effect (increase mAs, density increases)

Low High
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mAs mAs
 Some other technical factors

• Filtration

• Focus to film distance

• Secondary radiation Grids

• Film screen combination.

• Beam restricting devices

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1. Filtration
Increase in beam filtration leads to increase in quality but reduction
in intensity.

Effects of Filters on Patient Exposure: Energy and

intensity of

RADIATION INTENSITY
unfiltered and
Unfiltered filtered
polychromatic
radiation

Filtered

0 25 50 75 100
PHOTON ENERGY (keV)
Exposure Dose to the Skin for Comparable Density Radiographs of a Pelvic
Phantom with Various Thicknesses of Aluminium Filtration

60-kVp BEAM

ALUMINIUM EXPOSURE DOSE DECREASE IN

FILTRATION (mm) TO SKIN (mR) EXPOSURE DOSE
(%)
None 2380

0.5 1850 22

1.0 1270 47

3.0 465 80
2. Focus to film distance
3. Secondary radiation Grids

• A device used to reduce amount of radiation scattered

from interactions within the patients body from reaching
the IR..

• Scatter radiation produces unwanted density and makes

the radiograph more difficult to interpret.

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 EFFECT OF GRID

Grid used Non-grid 45

4. FILM SCREEN COMBINATION

• Direct relationship to density.

• – Faster screen (400 and 800 speed) produces more
density (less patient exposure)

• – Slower (100 or 200 speed) screen produces less

density (increased patient exposure)

• Regular or Standard-best of both=adequate speed and

sharpness.

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 400 speed system 100 speed system yields
yields greater density, increased
density , decreased recorded detail and pt
09/25/2025 recorded detail and pt exposure 47
5. BEAM RESTRICTING DEVICES

• These are the devices which prevents whatever scatter

radiation is produced either from arriving at the film or
affecting its quality.

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THANK YOU