The purpose of this study was to perform an analysis on microcalcification visualization in dual energy subtraction mammography. A theoretical model was applied in order to evaluate the signal to noise ratio on subtracted mammographic images. The detector performance is investigated and compared for two different scintillators; the commercially used GdOS:Tb, and LSO:Ce. In addition, the estimation of signal and noise levels is performed for different tissue compositions and various x ray spectra. The image parameters were selected for the optimization of a dual energy subtraction technique for the improved detection and visualization of microcalcifications. The results are presented and the dependence on image parameters is discussed.