The aim of this paper is to present the first images obtained in scanning x‐ray radiography without the help of synchrotron radiation but simply with a classical x‐ray source, that is, a scannable electron beam focused on an aluminum foil to produce characteristic x‐ray lines. The emitted x rays (about 1011–1012x‐ray photons s−1 mm−2) allow the observation of highly absorbing specimens in a nonabsorbing matrix about 10 &mgr;m thick. We show that these results can be improved by simple modifications of a scanning transmission electron microscope.