DICOM: A Healthy Image File Format

In January of 2008 I was able to introduce one of Photoshop CS3 Extended's most important features and how to use it.  Of course I am talking about Photoshop's new native ability to open and work with DICOM files. With this feature built-in Radiologists and others who work with medical images can apply almost any Photoshop feature to modify the images for presentations, education and communication. 

To read the full article, courtesy of Photoshop User Magazine, click here

The next step

Let's get to business. I have used Photoshop in one version or another since 1995. Initially it was just to open images, tweak them for presentations or publications, then print them out. At first, my work was never more complex than adding annotations.



During this time I was researching proliferation of cancer cells in the mouse xenograft model. In order to investigate properly I was given the opportunity to build a imaging system. After thorough investigation I decided on a Olympus AX70 with full manual controls coupled to Imaging Research's MCID M2 turnkey system. My acquisition camera was a Sony DXC970 video camera(640x480). The strength of the system was the ability to create tiled images - full field of view of my specimens with high resolution. To properly convey my images Photoshop became a necessary tool to work with these large images. (up to 200mb in 1995)






The need preceded the learning. I started to see Photoshop as more than a communication tool. Its features and abilities would combine to provide additional research potential.







Photoshop CS3 Extended
Photoshop CS3 Extended now supports opening DICOM images without additional plug-ins. There are multiple ways to import images that are saved in this medical image file standard.

There are at least five ways to open DICOM files with PSP CS3 Extended:

1) Open individual images through the DICOM import.
2) Open a selected group of DICOM images via DICOM import.
3) Open the selected group as an image stack by selecting just the first of a set of DICOM images bringing them directly in as an animation.
4) Load multiple DICOM images script under the File>scripts.
5) Convert DICOM into JPEG and then bring them in as JPEG's (losing data information in the lower bit depth and lossy compression.