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Reading the image

The vocabulary of light and dark, and the order to work through an image in.

A panoramic radiograph showing a well defined radiolucency in the mandible, its corticated border a thin radiopaque rim.

Corticated and non-corticated borders

A corticated border is a thin radiopaque line running around the edge of a radiolucent lesion on a radiograph. Cysts that arise within bone typically have…

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Bitewing radiograph with a numbered route drawn tooth by tooth: back to front along the upper arch, then back again along the lower arch, the same order every time.

Radiographic search pattern

A radiographic search pattern is a fixed route you follow across every radiograph, in the same order, every time. It exists because finding one…

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Bitewing radiograph marking both ends of the greyscale: a radiopaque restoration in the upper right first molar and a radiolucent carious lesion in the lower right second molar.

Radiolucent and radiopaque

Radiolucent means dark on a radiograph; radiopaque means light. Which one a structure comes out as depends on how much of the beam it absorbed on the way…

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A wall mounted intraoral X-ray unit on an articulating arm, the tube head that is shifted between two exposures.

Tube shift and parallax

The tube shift technique locates an object buccal or lingual to its neighbouring teeth by comparing two radiographs taken with the X-ray tube in two…

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Every entry covers appearance, look-alikes, and how to tell them apart.