Certainly, not all of these photographs and procedures are necessary for documentation. In the past, the dental charting and word of the forensic dentist on identification have been readily accepted and rarely challenged in court. However, in an era when technology has made quality photography accessible to all dentists, these techniques permit improvement of a procedure. Adding a photographic record to a written postmortem dental chart promotes accuracy and reproducibility of detail and is desirable and logical for a technique whose value is predicated upon its scientific nature.