We show that a photoelectron spectromicroscope of the photoelectron emission microscope type can be used as an x-ray imaging detector for radiology. Using high penetration hard-x-ray photons (wavelength < 0.1 nm), samples as thick as a few millimeters can be imaged with submicron resolution. The high imaging resolution enables us to substantially decrease the object-detector distance needed to observe coherent based contrast enhancement with respect to the standard film-based detection technique. Our result implies several advantages, the most important being a marked reduction of the required source emittance for contrast enhanced radiology. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(99)00842-6].