The comparative detectability of the artificial defects among conventional radiographs, digital images and digital subtraction images was evaluated. The artificial defects were made within spogy bone of 24 unilateral mandibles of adult dogs. The results were as follows: 1. With normal exposure time, the detectability of digital subtraction radiographs was 90.3% which was statistically significant superior to those of conventional radiographs(78.0%) and digital images(75.9%) (p<0.05). 2. With half-exposure time, the detectability of conventional radiographs, digital images and digital subtraction radiographs was 68.4%, 67.3% and 69.9% respectively. There was no statistical significant difference among the detectability of these methods(p>0.05). 3. All radiographic images with normal exposure time showed statistically significant superior detectability to those with half-exposure time(p<0.05). 4. The detectability of digital subtraction radiographs was not linearly related to the standard deviation of the grey levels of reference line(p<0.05).