  In this review we discuss the observable consequences of in-medium changes of
hadronic properties in reactions with elementary probes, and in particular
photons, on nuclei. After an outline of the theoretical method used we focus on
a discussion of actual observables in photonuclear reactions; we discuss in
detail $2\pi$- and vector-meson production. We show that the $2\pi^0$
photoproduction data can be well described by final state interactions of the
pions produced whereas the semi-charged $\pi^0\pi^\pm$ channel exhibits a major
discrepancy with theory. For $\omega$ production on nuclei in the TAPS/CB@ELSA
experiment we analyse the $\pi^0\gamma$ decay channel, and illustrate the
strength of the method by simulating experimental acceptance problems.
Completely free of final state interactions is dilepton production in the few
GeV range. We show that the sensitivity of this decay channel to changes of
hadronic properties in medium in photonuclear reactions on nuclei is as large
as in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions and make predictions for the
on-going G7 experiment at JLAB. Finally we discuss that hadron production in
nuclei at 10 -- 20 GeV photon energies can give important information on the
hadronization process, and in particular on the time-scales involved. We show
here detailed calculations for the low-energy (12 GeV) run at HERMES and
predictions for planned experiments at JLAB.
