The visibility of the speckle pattern resulting from the scattered radiation of transmitted beams through a diffusing surface has been studied for a Gabor hologram and speckle photography. The cases of strictly- and quasimonochromatic light are also considered. Mathematical expressions for the dependence of the visibility on the distance from the centre of the undiffracted illuminating beam, its spectral half-width Afand the amplitude ratio m between the reference beam and the integrated scattered beams are obtained. A graphical method is found for determining M and Affrom the visibility as a function of the distance from the centre of the undiffracted illuminating beam.