An apparatus and method for automatically calculating and applying time gain compensation in a handheld or hand-carried ultrasonic imaging machine. The apparatus include an autogain unit to calculate the time gain compensation based on a processed ultrasound image. The image is divided into regions, and the image intensity is used to mask regions which satisfy a threshold. Masked regions are used to calculate a gain curve which is then spatially and temporally smoothed. Means are providing for masking entire columns of regions to remove areas where the probe is not in contact. This approach may allow less experienced users to achieve high quality images without the difficult and time-consuming task of manually adjusting the time gain compensation.
