Ace the 2026 Mosby Digital Image Challenge – Capture Success with Every Click!

Receptor exposure is governed by how many photons reach the image receptor and their energy. The two knobs you adjust to control that directly are milliamperage-seconds (mAs) and kilovoltage peak (kVp).

mAs sets the total number of photons produced in the tube during the exposure. Higher mAs increases the photon flux, so more radiation reaches the receptor and the exposure goes up (roughly in proportion to mAs, assuming other factors stay the same).

kVp determines beam energy. Increasing kVp makes the photons more penetrating, so a greater fraction of them pass through the patient and reach the receptor. This raises receptor exposure and also changes image contrast; the trade-off is that higher kVp reduces contrast but increases exposure.

Distance and geometry also affect exposure, but they’re considered geometric factors rather than primary exposure controls. Shorter source-to-image distance increases exposure at the receptor via the inverse square law, and longer distances decrease it. In practice, technique is often adjusted (via mAs) to compensate for SID changes to maintain target receptor exposure. OID and focal spot size mainly influence image quality—magnification, blur, and sharpness—rather than the amount of exposure reaching the receptor.