A method for quantifying caries, executed at least in part on data processing hardware, the method comprising generating a digital image of a tooth, the image comprising intensity values for a region of pixels corresponding to the tooth, gum, and background extracting a lesion area from sound tooth regions by identifying tooth regions, extracting suspicious lesion areas, and removing false positives identifying an adjacent sound region that is adjacent to the extracted lesion area reconstructing intensity values for tooth tissue within the lesion area according to values in the adjacent sound region and quantifying the condition of the caries using the reconstructed intensity values and intensity values from the lesion area.
