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Calendar 2021
This year there was a complete silence on the part of the equipment manufacturers. That’s too bad. Now the calendar sheets 2021 are finished in own production. This year at the suggestion of or daughter Marlies with the topic food.
Fusion imaging does not wirk int the same way with food as with transparent flowers. But the deep structure of the food nevertheless leads to interesting results. It worked surprisingly well to depict a smoked trout with its bones. And squashes exhibit nearly artistic features.
Trout X-ray fusion photo © Julian Köpke 
Black swan: pumpkins and fir cones X-ray photo © Julian Köpke The calendar sheets are finished now in portrait format 60cm x 42.6cm and can be viewed here.
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Oak leaves with acorns
A walk with friends in a shady valley on a particularly hot day led us to a large oak tree. At the end of a strong branch I discovered some acorns under young leaves. While trying to find an adequate translation for my text, I came across a special text:
„The faded oak leaf in that silent book is the memento of a friend, the school friend who was to remain a friend for life.“
No author to find.
I ripped off a nice branch from the tree and took it home to X-ray it the next day.
Oak leaves with acorns X-ray photo © Julian Köpke 
Oak leaves with acorns X-ray photo L-inversion © Julian Köpke In the digital world there is no longer an original.
The representation on the left hand side appears to look close to a clinical diagnostic X-ray. Somehow familiar to our eyes when dealing with fractures oder bowel problems.
The right hand side image shows a certain airiness or lightness that draws you into the picture. And there is some appeal of a shine through effect, especially at the leaves.
A quite inconspicuous photo of this composition nevertheless contributes to an increase of the appeal when it is merged with the X-ray image to a fusion image.
Oak leaves with acorns X-ray fusion photo © Julian Köpke The oak leaves are the memento of a friend, like the old school friend who was to remain a friend for life.
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Snail shells X-ray fusion photos
A friend handed me out some snail shells that he had in mind for a long time to lend me. Eventually, he found 5 beautiful shells when cleaning up the basement.
The effect of the images depends strongly on the post-processing. Some of the results may not be combined in one presentation.
Here I show three images of them as dark jewels with an intrinsic undefinable light. Maybe, we are thousand miles below sea level.
X-ray fusion photo snail shells composition II © Julian Köpke Fusion imaging works with a light box. Without, too. It depends on your subject. The light images were taken with a Leica Q, pointing just in the same direction as the X-rays from below of the X-ray tube. The resolution and technology is completely sufficient for the color use.
I designed a new composition, which should allow me to have different positions of the shells in space. The surrounding snail shells serve as supports.
X-ray fusion photo snail shells composition III © Julian Köpke I wanted to take the yellow, quit radiopaque snail shell from above. So I had to rearrange the snail shells once more.
When looking at my flickr stream you may find other representations in the preceding neighborhood of this image.
X-ray fusion photo snail shells composition IV © Julian Köpke -
Purple Clematis
Clematis is a reliably blossoming flower in our garden. Every year we look forward to her blooms for many weeks. Photographing flowers means sacrificing beautiful little things. It took me some time to go there.
With growing experience I feel less pain to sacrifice a bloom for artistic purposes. It relieves me a little, that I have the blooms swum after my photo and X-ray sessions in a soup-plate filled with water which is in the kitchen. Many people like the floating blooms in a soup-plate, if they are in a break.
The HDR series of my composition with three clematis gave me a hard time. Although a tripod is indispensable and always used, a small pixel shift between exposures was perceivable. After fixing this, light, color and structure was processed for an HDR image.
The X-ray of the three clematis was performed as mammography due to the size of my composition. The fusion image can be understood as a texturized HDR by means of a radiograph. But there is no unique solution to all compositions. The best solution has to be found out individually.
After all, the clematis look as light as a feather in this image. It was worth it.
Three purple Clematis fusion X-ray photo © Julian Köpke -
Red calla lilies
Sometimes reality falls behind our expectations. With 6 red calla lilies I felt well prepared to do some new X-rays and HDR images for image fusion. But my X-ray system surprisingly raised a barrier. The main computer stopped doing his job.
Many thoughts ran through my brain. Will we be able to examine patients the next day ? How fast the supplier will be able to react ? Will the company find a cause of this disturbance ? How many days will my calla lilies be alive ?
I found a work-around by thinking over the interacting hardware. Doing some steps and with a newly restarted system I was able to create 7 different compositions without further disruption of which I show here No. 4.
With X-rays emerges a more impressive illusion of transparency than a plain HDR would have been able to produce. Even when using a lightbox.
Similar to a lightbox it produces better results when laying a petal or a complete blossom over the top of the stalk of another one.
On top of the longest stalk is a twin blossom !
Fusion X-ray photo Calla lilies IV © Julian Köpke You never know if the inversion in Lab colors leads to an attractive result. It’s always worth looking at Lab color transformations. In this case the black background yields vivid colors.
Fusion X-ray photo Calla lilies IV. Black background using Lab inversion. © Julian Köpke -
Radiating Beauty: Creating a new photographic form with fusion X-Ray images
The shapes and forms are recognizable, yet the level of detail is deeper than the human eye can normally perceive: Leaves appear minutely laced and surfaces are impossibly intricate, somewhere between translucent and opaque. Welcome to the captivating work of photographer Harold Davis and radiologist Dr. Julian Köpke, who combine their skill, passion, and vision to create stunning X-ray photography and pioneering fusion images. Read more on the Pixsy blog (article by Natalie Holmes).
This nice article was posted today to share the fascination of our common work on fusion X-ray images using a light box manual HDR photo of flowers and their X-ray.
X-ray fusion image of a Gloriosa lilly © Julian Köpke Our X-ray data are the same, our photographic data a nearly the same: Harold used a Nikon D850 and I used a Nikon D810A, which is modified for astrophotography. Our common lens was a Zeiss Makro-Planar T* 2/50 ZF.2.
We have some techniques and some principles in common, yet we are different individuals with different results. The next image is partly inspired by Harold’s version. Blue is the complementary color to yellow and fits nicely into the petals. The red color in the center is an image of the sun in monochromatic Hα light using a Fabry-Perot-Interferometer. So this image is a triple fusion image of three different light sources ! If you look closer at 2pm in the center, there are two sunspots.
This sunflower is a composit of X-ray, monochromatic Hα light of the sun and a sunflower on a lightbox. © Julian Köpke -
Nautilus shell X-ray fusion photo of energy levels
Different energies of X-ray radiation mean different transparency of an object. There is an example in my FAQ using a Nautilus shell.
Instead of compressing images of different energies to a single image today I subtracted the 70 kV image of a Nautilus shell from the 40 kV image.
The central parts of the Nautilus shell are more dense and show a significant higher difference. The core of the shell gets shiny. This is how it looks like:
Energy difference X-ray photo of a Nautilus shell. The image is the difference of a 70kV and a 40 kV image. © Julian Köpke In positive X-ray representation you can compare the results. Left hand is the compressed image of 4 different energy levels, right hand the difference image.
Nautilus X-Ray Energy Compressed © Julian Köpke 
Energy difference X-ray photo of a Nautilus shell. The fusion image is the difference of a 70kV and a 40 kV image in X-ray positive representation. © Julian Köpke -
Dahlias fusion X-ray HDR photo
Long time ago my friend Harold and I did these X-rays in my practice. There was so much to do. Today was a chance to process the fusion images. Some details can be found in my FAQs.
The manual HDR is already appealing to our eyes.
Dahlias using manual HDR in visible light There is some charm in the X-ray image of the same composition. The hidden parts of the stalks can be clearly seen.
Five Dahlias X-ray photo © Julian Köpke The fusion image of this composition shows both color and hidden structures.
Dahlias fusion digital X-ray with manual HDR photo in visible light Finished image with a background:
Dahlias fusion digital X-ray and manual HDR photo with background © Julian Köpke -
Sunflower X-ray photos revisited
How to show the sun in the middle of a sunflower ? For astronomers it is quite common to look at the sun in hydrogen alpha light, which is a pure red at 635nm. With artistic eyes, a red center might be overdone.
So I tried two different representations, one in BW that is close to the natural look and feel of a sunflower and one with a light blue in the center as complementary color to the yellow petals.
This sunflower is a fusion photo of X-ray, monochromatic Hα light of the sun converted to BW and a sunflower on a lightbox. © Julian Köpke 
This sunflower is a fusion photo of X-ray, monochromatic Hα light of the sun converted to blue and a sunflower on a lightbox. © Julian Köpke The surface structure of our sun can be seen like astronomers see it.
There is no photo of the next digital X-ray image of a sunflower with its stalk and a leaf:
Digital X-ray photo of a sunflower (inverted representation). © Julian Köpke -
Shells fusion X-ray photo
Long time I dreamed of this fusion image of shells. Because already on a lightbox some of the shells are transparent and have nice colors. I like the shining through effect very much.
The X-ray image is a compromise of structure and density resolution, depending on the maximum energy the mammography system is able to produce.
Today I’m not at all in a stable state due to a recurrent infection. So I allowed me to do this image instead of hard working.
Shells fusion X-ray photo © Julian Köpke It is the light inversion in Lab color mode that shows more of a X-ray look and feel. The colors are pretty close to the bright image.
Shells fusion X-ray photo with inversion of the L-channel © Julian Köpke
