The digital revolution over the past several decades has advanced every facet of evidence detection, photography, optimization, and interpretation. Forensic scientists and practitioners have benefited tremendously from the move from film to digital. With proper procedures in place, digital images and casework capabilities have increased tremendously in both complexity and range due to a vast array of tools to enhance evidence and photography. Forensic Digital Image Processing: Optimization of Impression Evidence provides the forensic investigator with the tools and understanding to extract, optimize, and interpret the maximum evidence possible from crime scenes to increase identifications. The book begins by examining the emergence of forensic digital image processing, and the gradual improvement and acceptance of the science over the past four decades. Coverage includes looking at the issues of image integrity and authentication including forensic image optimization and the manipulation of images. Chapters explore techniques exploiting color theory, modes, and channels to optimize signal-to-noise ratio in images. One of the greatest assets of digital image technology is the ability to combine multiple images of the same subject to create a final, blended image: one that displays the desired evidence and is especially useful for fingerprint or footwear impression. Later chapters demonstrate image subtraction, focus stacking, and high dynamic range, utilizing images in optimum focus and with substrate interference diminished or removed entirely. The authors look at fast Fourier transform as an optimal tool for noise removal, addressing basic theory and diagnosis of the noise signatures. The book discusses the history of digital imaging techniques and their treatment within the court system. Forensic Digital Image Processing: Optimization of Impression Evidence serves as an invaluable resource and tool for practicing professionals-as well as those new to the field-to look at best practices, the latest technology, and advances in utilizing the increasing array of tools of the trade.

The digital revolution over the past several decades has advanced every facet of evidence detection, photography, optimization, and interpretation. Forensic scientists and practitioners have benefited tremendously from the move from film to digital. With proper procedures in place, digital images and casework capabilities have increased tremendously in both complexity and range due to a vast array of tools to enhance evidence and photography. Forensic Digital Image Processing: Optimization of Impression Evidence provides the forensic investigator with the tools and understanding to extract, optimize, and interpret the maximum evidence possible from crime scenes to increase identifications. The book begins by examining the emergence of forensic digital image processing, and the gradual improvement and acceptance of the science over the past four decades. Coverage includes looking at the issues of image integrity and authentication including forensic image optimization and the manipulation of images. Chapters explore techniques exploiting color theory, modes, and channels to optimize signal-to-noise ratio in images. One of the greatest assets of digital image technology is the ability to combine multiple images of the same subject to create a final, blended image: one that displays the desired evidence and is especially useful for fingerprint or footwear impression. Later chapters demonstrate image subtraction, focus stacking, and high dynamic range, utilizing images in optimum focus and with substrate interference diminished or removed entirely. The authors look at fast Fourier transform as an optimal tool for noise removal, addressing basic theory and diagnosis of the noise signatures. The book discusses the history of digital imaging techniques and their treatment within the court system. Forensic Digital Image Processing: Optimization of Impression Evidence serves as an invaluable resource and tool for practicing professionals-as well as those new to the field-to look at best practices, the latest technology, and advances in utilizing the increasing array of tools of the trade.

"Buck's Junction" is author Jill Smith Entrekin's second novel. (Entrekin's first novel, "Star of Flint," was published in 2011.) Staying true to her Southern roots, "Buck's Junction" is a coming-of-age story set in a small Georgia town that tells the touching, funny and sometimes heartbreaking story of best friends - who just happen to be cousins. Buck and Lonnie are cousins growing up together in a small Georgia town. They are both gifted athletes and altar boys who enjoy the sweet, simple pleasures of their small town life: watching the train roar through the Junction each day, gazing at the stars from high atop the water tower and hunting with the best bird dog in the county. For Buck and Lonnie, life in the summer of 1960 is good. That is until Uncle Elwood shows up. A mean, sadistic drunk who takes pleasure in tormenting others, Elwood sets his sights on Lonnie and Buck, and their once innocent, idyllic world will change forever. In the great tradition of Southern writers, Entrekin paints a rich picture of life in a small Southern town featuring colorful characters and lessons about the strength of family and the inevitability of shattered innocence. "Buck's Junction" will make you laugh, it will make you cry, and it will remind you that sometimes only a best friend can help you get through the hurdles life puts in your way. Entrekin grew up in a small Georgia town, which influences her writing in many ways. "I think Southerners are more inclined to wear their feelings on their sleeves, which makes for colorful characters and usually a heart-wrenching tale," said Entrekin. "Southern writers aren't ashamed to trample on political correctness - to tell a true story with honesty and humor. I'm a Southern girl. I've eaten Georgia peaches and climbed magnolias all my life. I never tire of the personalities that bubble with uniquely Southern messages to share in this region of our country."

In the steamy summer of 1961, life is simple for ten-year-old tomboy Allie Sinclair-until she stumbles upon a shocking secret that will haunt her for the rest of her days. Set in a sleepy mill town where the Flint River flows amidst Georgia red clay and an array of colorful characters, this Southern-fried tale of laughter, love, loss, and corruption unfolds as Allie comes of age alongside her beloved big sister Cece. Nearly a decade later, Allie and Cece reunite in Flintville and unintentionally unravel the mystery, igniting an explosive chain of events that will forever alter their lives.