PURPOSE: To output always a hard copy of a radiation picture suitable for photographing, by inverting the left and the right of the radiation picture to record it on the second recording medium when information indicates that the radiation picture is photographed from a direction opposite to the observation direction of a body to be examined.

CONSTITUTION: Input information is stored in a file 16. When a recording medium 24 is set to a reader 10, identification information of the recording medium entered on a label 26 is read optically or magnetically to retrieve stored information of the file 16. The picture signal indicating the radiation picture of the body to be examined which is read by the reader 10 is transferred to a recorder 14 by a processing device 12 and is recorded and reproduced as a reproduced picture of the body to be examied on an output recording medium 100. When reading stored information of the file 16, the processing device 12 discriminates information related to the photographing direction. In case of front photographing, a picture element signal is read out from a buffer 200 in the same normal horizontal scanning direction as the direction where a radiation picture 22 of the recording medium 24 is read out, and this signal is transferred to the recorder 14 and the file 16. In case of back photographing, the picture element signal is read out from the buffer 200 in the opposite horizontal scanning direction and is transferred to the recorder 14 and the file 16.