Customer Reviews

Digital Analysis of Bite Mark Evidence

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DIGITAL ANALYSIS OF BITE MARK EVIDENCE (Using Adobe® Photoshop®)

Raymond J. Johansen, DMD & C. Michael Bowers, DDS, JD

A BOOK REVIEW BY Howard S. Glazer, DDS, FAAFS

As we embark into the 21st century, state-of-the-art technology affords the forensic dentist the opportunity of using digital photography to better analyze and compare bite mark evidence.

Dr. Johansen and Bowers have provided a "how to" manual that specifically details those steps necessary to successfully use, and understand, digital analysis. It is imperative that the uniqueness of any individual characteristics of a bite mark, or those teeth that cause the mark, to be reliably, accurately and precisely analyzed in a replicable fashion. Such techniques do exist and the authors lead the reader to a full working knowledge of how to prepare, handle and utilize the evidence. All manipulations are handled via Adobe Photoshop 5.0®.

Subjects included in this text include: * scanning bite mark photographs * detecting and correcting photographic distortion * resizing the photograph to life size * printing, enhancing, and adding text to the photograph * scanning the suspect's casts and overlay fabrication * comparison methods

This book is a hands-on, reference that requires the operator to follow specific steps to achieve maximum and optimum results. At first, the tasks seem difficult, but repetition increases the operator's familiarity and ease of use. They include that a test case eases the reader's understanding and provide for immediate experience.

I encourage and enthusiastically recommend this book to all my forensic dental colleagues. The techniques learned herein will become the benchmark for digital analysis of photographic evidence.