Notebook #9 Revisions 35

Notebook #9

Digital Artifacts
o Hardware
Image receptor/Imaging plate artifacts
Dust, dirt and scratches from handling imaging
plate and from plate going in and out of
cassette through CR reader
Dirt on lenses, mirrors, and light guide
o Horizontal white lines that engineers
clean
Cracks on IP from everyday wear and tear
Cleaning chemical stains or wrong chemical
used which leak into cassette
Pixel malfunction
o Sampling errors and bad pixels on flat
panel detectors
Ghost images due to incomplete erasures of
cassette
Backscatter will appear black on image from
lead or aluminum backing of cassette
IP cracks will be radiolucent with white if
problem with IP, including hair or residue from
tape
Plate reader artifacts
Inconsistent problem on multiple images of
unnecessary lines and patterns on image due
to plate reader malfunction
Printer artifacts
Dirt in printer causes white lines
Fixed by engineers
o Software artifacts
Image processing artifacts
Dead pixels
Flat field correction
o Software fixes irregular patterns on
image
Quantum mottle Not enough radiation
exposure to detector, so bump up the mAs
Overexposure
o Loss of contrast and edges
o Occurs because of detector saturation
Notebook #9 Revisions 36

o High technique
Histogram errors
Wrong menu selected means wrong histogram
Rescaling
When image is rescaled, software cant adjust
image to refer to histogram
o Object artifacts
Collimation
Improper collimation
No collimation means too much exposure in
histogram
Backscatter
Backscatter will appear black on image from
lead or aluminum backing of cassette

Patient positioning

Dirt on Light Guide

Cracks Cracks on IP due to wear/tear

Notebook #9 Revisions 37

Damaged IR Plate Bad Detector Elements

Ghosting

Backscatter
Notebook #9 Revisions 38

Histogram Analysis Error