Abstract

Imaging is more than diagnostic evaluations. Medical photography is a critical part of animal records. Photographic images are essential in monitoring disease resolution or progression and documenting lesions. Photographic data are important when soliciting second opinions and preparing presentations and manuscripts. Taking a picture is easy. Taking good quality pictures is just as easy but requires some knowledge and attention to detail.

Setting white balance will remove unrealistic color casts, so that objects which appear white to your eye look white in your photo. Proper white balance has to take into account the "color temperature" of the light source, which refers to the relative warmth or coolness of white light. Adjusting white balance is simple and assures best color saturation. Image composition is critical. Remove extraneous blood, dirt, and hair from the lesion to eliminate distractions. Whenever possible, keep hands and body parts out of the shot. If hands are critical to show the lesion, assure that clean gloves are worn. Focus, shoot, and check the image to confirm that the focus was proper. Digital photography allows rapid evaluation of images. Take the time to assure that your focus is sharp where you want it to be. Scale is helpful to demonstrate lesion size. Scale markers should be clean and at the margins of the image--not at the center. Taking images with and without scale markers provides more options. Use images to present the lesions in multiple contexts. To do this, you can change the angles as well as the image composition. The same lesion tells a different story when shown in situ, as part of the whole organ, in close-up, and in cross section.

After you have your images, simple defects can be addressed with management software such as Adobe^® Photoshop^®. This allows modification of background colors and removal of excess glare. These steps allow you to adjust the brightness or contrast, crop the image, or touch up other details Post-processing should enhance images without distorting the lesions. The most important post-processing step is accurate and reliable labeling and filing. Good images that are easily retrieved are more valuable than great ones that are lost.