Top row: radial dust extinction profiles constructed for two complexes. The plus-signs and the dotted lines show the extinction profiles adopted from Marshall et al. (2006). The solid red line shows the mean profile. Bottom row: predicted source count functions (source count above the limiting magnitude K_lim), based on the Besançon model and Marshall et al. (2006) reddening data, for the same two clouds. The source count functions corresponding to the mean extinction profile are shown with the solid red curves. The dashed black curves show the same function using the individual extinction profiles. The horizontal lines show the observed foreground source density, and the vertical lines point out the corresponding distances. The dotted lines show the Poisson errors related to the observed source density (and the resulting distances).