An x-ray imaging method comprises the steps of: providing a set of at least one training material, the set comprising different materials and/or different thicknesses of the or each material； obtaining observed x-ray images of the at least one training material with a pixelated detector； building a database in a simulator of simulated scatter kernels for variable parameters within the simulator for each of the at least one training material； generating a transfer function between parameters of the simulator and parameters of the observed image which is independent of sample type and thickness； generating a whole image scatter estimate； predicting the direct radiation for each scatter kernel； applying the transfer function to the scatter estimate and the direct radiation or the inverse of the transfer function to the observed intensity values； performing the calculation Z−；S−；D<；threshold to provide scatter free data and/or a scatter free image.
