What are the requirements to scan X-ray films?

Question

Can I use ANY scanners scan films? or do I have to have a special kind of scanner? (Example. light source from the top instead of the bottom of the scanner?)

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Instead of scanning, why not use a lightbox which is used to view x-rays ?

Set up a digital camera in front of the light box, preferably shoot in RAW format and experiment with the settings to get the desired result.

Answer 2

You may have some trouble finding a scanner that will 1) scan X-Ray films due to their size and 2) have the necessary gamma adjustments built-in to the software.

In the late 1970's Dr. Donald Resnick, MD had me shooting thousands of X-Ray films for use in his three volume treatise on soft tissue X-Ray films.  Link:  http://www.dimag.com/specialedition2002/...

At the time I used a large backlit copy stand, a Nikon F2 with 55 mm macro lens and the fine grain Kodak PANATOMIC-X film.  The Kodak film was exposed for the highlights and developed for the shadow.  I used a dip and dunk tank and developed the film using a water bath between agitations to extend the shadow development without blocking the highlights.  The actual time in the developer was just over five minutes with one minute water bathes.

The resulting negatives were then printed without any contrast correction using an Omega 4x5 enlarger and paper processed on a Kodak Royal Print Processor.

With such a large project, many different medical and scientific photographers were involved (just look at the back of the book for acknowledgements).  My wife took over the project while I was in Africa for four months to keep the project from stalling.

All that said, you may find using a DSLR and shooting in RAW will provide you the control necessary to get detail in the whole range X-Rays can record.

Answer 3

It depends on what you want to do with them. If you are looking to make them usable in digital format in a medical setting, then you would probably want the site that took them to digitize them. I say this because of the Health Level 7 format that most digital x-rays are now in. Can you tell that standard was set up by the military?

Most radiology sites in hospitals have a digitizer to do just this.

If you are simply trying to make standard digital images for personal use, then the previous answer is very thorough.

Best of luck.