This section of the Guide covers the need for image capturing techniques and some suggestions.

Because orthopaedic subjects often require illustrations and orthopaedic topics can seldom be discussed without Xrays it is important to understand ways to place Xrays and other illustrations on the web. Even if all you do is send email messages the ability to send a film along with your message is an undoubted bonus.

In order to use an image on the Internet it must be converted into a digital form. Once "captured" the image is stored in the computer as a file and can be manipulated in a number of ways. This editing of the image is a frequent necessity before sending an image through the Internet.

Image capture can be done through a scanner, a video camera, a digital camera or through a specialized scanning system. Naturally the quality of the image you obtain is related to the cost of the scanning system with ultra-high resolution systems costing the most. However, it should be noted that if you are using a browser, as most of us are, the resolution of the whole screen may be only 800 X 600 pixels. So if you want your image to fit on the computer screen you don't need and cannot view really high resolution. Furthermore the high resolution image files are very large and sending them takes up a lot of bandwidth.