Best Practices for Documenting Image Enhancement
Scientific Working Group on Imaging Technology (SWGIT)
See also the instructional videos on "Crime Scene and Evidence Photography"
Introduction
A fundamental goal of this and other Scientific Working Group on Imaging Technology documents is to ensure the production of quality forensic imagery for use as evidence in a court of law. The specific purpose of this document is to describe best practices for documenting image enhancement used in the criminal justice system and to provide laboratory personnel with instruction regarding the level of documentation that is appropriate when performing a variety of enhancement operations on still images, regardless of the tools and devices used to perform the enhancement.
Accurate documentation is necessary to satisfy the legal requirements for introducing forensic images as evidence in a court of law and to allow other professionals to understand the enhancement and produce comparable results.
The general principles and procedures used are the same regardless of the format or media in which the images are recorded. Therefore, in this document the word image refers to any image recorded on any media (e.g., conventional photographic, electronic, magnetic, or optical media, etc.).
Note: The Best Practices described below are predicated on the assumption that an original file/image that has been subjected to processing be preserved.
Image Enhancement Position
Image enhancement has been used in forensic applications since the 1840s and is an accepted practice in forensic science, regardless of whether it is performed in a traditional wet chemistry darkroom or in a laboratory equipped only with electronic devices, such as computers, scanners, and/or video capture systems.