Producing a Radiograph

The making of a radiograph requires some type of recording mechanism. The most common device used to be film, but digital detector arrays have largely replaced film in most industries. A radiograph is actually a photographic recording produced by the passage of radiation through a subject onto a detector, producing what is called a latent image of the subject.

A latent image A latent image is an image that has been created on the detector due to the interaction of radiation with the material making up the detector. This latent image is not visible to the naked eye until further processing has taken place. To make the latent image visible, x-ray film is processed by exposure to chemicals similar to that of photographic film. In digital detectors, x-ray photons are tallied in the array of pixels to form the image.