I have a DSC-T100 Sony digital camera…It’s a point & shoot…Burgundy colour…Small & 8 megapixel & relatively cheap at the time from Henry’s camera Outlet store in Toronto…

Here’s how you do your DIY Mammogram/Ultrasound pictures…

Say you feel a cyst in your left breast just before your period & maybe you are approaching your pre-menopausal age…

You should take a picture of it…You say:”But my camera can’t see through skin?”

You would be wrong…Yes it can, you just don’t know it can…

Stand near a bright window…Take your top off where you want to take the picture-like, expose your left breast area…

Put your camera on Macro setting…Macro means close-up…

Set it to Flash all the time so it flashes for sure…(Note:Stupidly, I now am thinking my flash didn’t go off when I took my pictures, even though I told the camera to use flash…So, apparently it didn’t really matter that my flash malfunctioned…I still got enough topography for a clear view of how & where & what size the thing was & how it was sticking out…)

Turn the camera around & point it to where your cyst feels like it is…

Click the take picture button…Turn the camera around & see what you got…

Probably too abstract & not good enough…

Do it again, this time maybe let your nipple into the picture so when you see the picture, it has some context…

Do this maybe 5 times, until you get a decent shot of the breast & the area where you feel the cyst…Don’t obsess…

Upload those pics to your Mac computer in iPhoto…

Choose the best shot, & click EDIT…

Enhance…Now start messing with the contrast, the colours, the temperature, the saturation…In fact, just PLAY with the picture in EDIT mode…

You will find out that certain colours show texture better…Topography…

Mess with the yellow & the greens, the blue & the reds…

Keep going into your picture becomes more like a topographical map…

Certain levels of contrast will show bumps better than others…Some saturation & exposure levels will reveal HEAT signatures…

A cyst is hotter…A cyst actually sticks out a bit to a MACRO lens…

Once you get a really good topographical coloured picture that shows where the bump is, save that…

Now move that pic. to your desktop & open it…

in Preview, the file will have a menu at the top…Choose Select, then down that list choose INSTANT ALPHA…

Now in Instant Alpha click your mouse on area of the photo that you want to disappear…It takes a moment to decide…

First it turns red/orange, then dotted lines appear on the parts you want to remove, then click the DELETE button on your KEYBOARD…

You can remove parts of your picture that cloud the subject matter this way…Also remove the nipple so that you can show the picture to people without feeling shy…

Save the picture again…

Now upload it to Fotoflexer.com …

Make it sharper, enhance it again, basic stuff…

Now there are all sorts of new edit things you can PLAY with in Fotoflexer too…

Play with the TINT function…In Advanced TINT mode you can handpaint areas of your Photo, then have only that area tinted…

Try to see the lines of the topography of your cyst lumpiness…Then use the paintbrush to paint just the lumpy area…

A cyst classically looks like a circle with a little dome at its head…

Like this

fool around with the edit functions in Fotoflexer…Just click Cancel if the function was a dumb idea…

When you get a clear cut picture of your breast & the cyst lumpy area delineated well so another person can see it too, click save as PNG, which saves transparency too…

Open that file & look at it…You now have a decent shot of how big your cyst is…

a final step might be to upload that file to somewhere like VISTEK.ca & have them print out an 8 inch by 8 inch Premium glossy picture, that you can walk down to Queen & Yonge (near the Eaton centre) to pick up…

I outsource my printing because nobody can beat those professional printing machines & awesome papers…But you could certainly try…(I have no patience for printers & printing papers myself, so I started outsourcing that decades ago…But I am only one…)

Anyways…before you go to your Korean TCMP for acupuncture & moxibustion to surround that dragon & have it dissolved, you can do all this, so she has a paper look of where the cyst is & how big it is & what the margins are…

Plus when she gets rid of that cyst, you can show people before & after pictures…

Won’t you be proud?

Update:

Algorithm example(of how to mess with editing programs to see cysts)…

Take picture, Upload to Mac…

Go into EDIT mode:

quick fixes:enhance

Adjust: sharpness

definition

highlights (all the way up to 100)

Contrast Saturation (all the way up to 100)

blue(all the way to left)

pink(all the way to left)

Exposure(all the way down to left)

Shadows(all the way up to 100 to right)

Effects: Click LIGHTEN 11 times…

Ok, Save to iPhoto Library…

Drag edited file to desktop…

Open…

Select:

InstantAlpha(click & drag over parts of picture to make transparent, wait for red area, click delete button on your keyboard, start again till all parts deleted that distract or embarass)…

Save as(new file)…

Go to Fotoflexer.com(close annoying Mackeeper ad)

upload file…(it is a png file that saves transparency so it will take longer to load…png is more fun than jpeg for this…)

Click Auto Fix
Click Effects:

Look for TINT Advanced Options(in Tint)

Apply to (choose painted region in dropfdown menu)

Adjust brush size Paint area where you see a lump or weird colour area or topography with brush Move FADE slider to +(all the way to right)

Click the box INVERT close advanced options

click APPLY

Save this file…(choose PNG)…

result:

Take photo you took 3 days ago…

Take new photo from today…

Drag into DOUBLETAKE program…

Put pictures side by side…make them the same size…Save to iPhoto…

Here is the resulting comparison shots of a cyst during period bloat & shrinking after period starts to end…It gets flatter at end of period…

Cysts are always huge at beginning of period bloat so don’t freak out, they will shrink back down when it’s over…