Convert DICOM to JPG or PDF, right in your browser
Your files never leave this tab. Conversion runs on your own machine, and nothing is uploaded until you ask us for a report.
Drop your DICOM files here
One .dcm file, or the whole DICOM folder off your scan CD. Files with no extension work too.
How do I get my images?
Wherever you are, this one sentence works at the imaging desk or in a records request:
“I'd like a copy of my images in DICOM format — on a CD or as a download.”
- United States
- Your report usually appears in your patient portal, such as MyChart, as soon as it is released. Look for an Images link or a Download Study button next to it; some hospitals use Ambra instead. You can still ask for a CD, which costs anywhere from nothing to about $75.
- United Kingdom
- Make a Subject Access Request to the hospital and tick the X-ray, CT or MRI images box: images are left out unless you ask. Allow up to 30 days. If you get a download link, save the files to a computer straight away, since links expire (after 60 days at some trusts).
- Spain
- In the Basque Country, Osakidetza's Carpeta de Salud lets you request your X-ray, CT and MRI images online and download them within 24 hours. In Madrid you can view them under Mi Carpeta de Salud → Pruebas por imagen. Some private groups, such as Quirónsalud, share images only through their portal; if yours only lets you look, screenshot the key slices and upload those.
- Germany
- You normally get a patient CD or DVD with a viewer on it. The images sit in a DICOM folder, often as files with no extension: choose the whole folder above.
- Brazil
- Imaging centres may hand over results on film or paper, on CD/DVD, or online (CFM opinion 23/2019). If you were given a CD, choose its DICOM folder above.
Only have a portal link? Sign in, press Download, and choose the downloaded files here. We never open portal links for you. A PDF with a few key images needs no converting: upload it as it is.
How it works
- 1
Pick your files
Drag in one .dcm file or the whole DICOM folder from your CD. Nothing is sent anywhere at this point, or at any later point unless you ask for it.
- 2
Your browser decodes them
The tags and the pixels are read on your own machine, using the brightness and contrast settings the scanner recorded in the file.
- 3
Download, or read it
Save the JPGs, save a PDF, or send one image straight into ReadingScan and get back what it says in plain English.
You converted it. Now understand it.
ReadingScan reads the image you just converted, or the report PDF you were handed, and writes back in plain English in about five minutes.
It answers the specific thing you were worried about when you booked the scan, and it lists what the scan ruled out, which is the part nobody thinks to explain.
Anything still unclear, you can ask follow-up questions on the report itself.
Educational only. Not a substitute for professional medical care.
What this converter reads
Reads
- Uncompressed DICOM: Implicit VR Little Endian, Explicit VR Little Endian and Explicit VR Big Endian.
- 8-bit and 16-bit greyscale, signed or unsigned, MONOCHROME1 and MONOCHROME2.
- RGB colour, interleaved or stored as three planes. Ultrasound often arrives this way.
- Multi-frame files, one JPG per frame, up to 200 frames.
- Files with no .dcm extension and no file header, which is what many CD burners write.
Does not read
- JPEG, JPEG 2000 and RLE compressed pixel data. Decoding those needs a codec this page deliberately does not ship.
- DICOMDIR index files. Choose the folder instead and the slices themselves come through.
- Encrypted or password-protected files.
What to do instead
Most hospitals will export uncompressed DICOM, or plain JPGs, if you ask the imaging desk for them. You can also photograph the screen at the viewing station with your phone. Our reading accepts photos.
Upload a photo insteadQuestions about DICOM files
What patients ask us after they open a scan CD for the first time.