I want to darken an image - how should I do that?

If you are intending to make the whole image a little darker, click on the Look Up Table (LUT) button.  This tool shifts the grey scale of the entire image, making all elements a bit darker or a bit lighter.  To do this, click and drag the middle dot on the diagonal line toward the lower right corner.  The more you move that dot, the darker you make the image.   You can undo the change by clicking on the Undo button on the same tool, click on the Undo button in the Metron tool bar, or click on one of the Filter buttons (1,2,3,4).

Can I use the Window Leveling button to darken an image?

You can use this tool to darken an image but that is best done with the Look Up Table button.  The Window Leveling tool is originates from human medicine with Radiologists using this dynamic tool to help them increase the visibility of specific anatomy of interest.  If you click and hold down the left mouse button while then moving the mouse around in all directions, you will change the visibility of image elements - accentuating some - diminishing others. The is a more selective darkening and lightening tool.  Click here for tutorial video!

When would I want to use the “Invert” button?

The Invert button presents a little known “Black on White” view of an X-Ray image.  Historically, X-Ray film processing would present the X-Ray on a light box with “White on Black” or sometimes called “White Bone On X-Ray”. With Digital X-Ray, the computer makes it easy to present both styles.   We recommend you make a copy of your X-Ray image by using the Metron Copy and Paste feature.  Next, open the second image and click the Invert button. Return to the study screen and click to view both images side-by-side.  This is a cool trick that gives you two unique views of the same X-Ray image side-by-side.

Why is it taking a very long time to crop my image?

Sometimes the cursor may still seem to be in the busy mode - "spinning" - but actually the cropping is already completed. To verify that the cropping is finished, a user needs to click on the image or away from it on the panel. The mouse cursor will revert to normal indicating completion of the image crop.

 Should I always crop an image? 

Cropping is very much a personal preference.  Keep in mind that whenever you crop an image, the remaining portion of the image will grow to fill in the screen area - will magnify.   This means the anatomy presented is then visually larger than normal for the animal size with the CR and DR devices used to collect the image.  This is all fine as long as you know the anatomy has been magnified.  We recommend that you crop collimated images as a general rule.  But for images with full exposure, we recommend you leave them in full view.    If you do regularly crop images, we also suggest you add a “crop” related annotation to your image annotation list.  Via Preferences, Annotation Preferences, add the “Image” annotation to display the “Cropped" status. If the image has been cropped, the annotation will say “(cropped)”.

Is the patient birthday important? 

Though not required, it is a good habit to add the patient birthday to the Metron patient record.  The birthday does not affect image acquisition or image processing. Metron’s equine podiatry measurement analysis has the option to present score details based in part on equine patient age.  For those practices that may send X-Ray studies by DICOM to others for review, the accompanying DICOM data will include the patient birthday.  Any veterinary radiologist will want to know the patient birthday as part of their overall patient/case study.