Window Width and Level - Video Lesson

One of the major benefits of digital imaging is the ability to adjust the contrast and brightness of an image. We call this the window width and window level. The window width actually refers to the contrast in the image and the window level refers to the brightness. In CT, these terms have even more specific definitions. The window width is actually defined as the total number of displayed hounds field values. The window level is specifically defined as the center point for all displayed houndsfield values. I'm sure this makes perfect sense, but let's go ahead and look at a few examples. Each of these columns represents the same range of houndsfield values that might be inside of a single CT image. But the appearance of these Houndsfield values for any given pixel will change depending on the window