The photos were taken about eighteen inches away, under a strong light and at an angle to the light so as to get a lot of surface reflection.
I used my digital camera to take two images – one of the board’s front and another of the back. It dawned on me that I had access to something almost as good – the GIMP ( GNU Image Manipulation Program). It became so frustrating that I wished that I could use an x-ray like my friend Neil. Recently, while reverse engineering a printed circuit board with installed components that I didn’t want to damage, flipping the board from front to back and trying to not lose a trace path was proving to be very difficult. In this way he could see simultaneously see both the PCB’s front and back traces and easily follow traces with vias, and through-hole interconnection. Years ago an orthodontist friend of mine, Neil, who was, by night, an electronic enthusiastic, used to reverse engineer printed circuit boards (PCB) by x-raying them in his office x-ray machine.
