Posted on Thursday, February 02, 2006 - 09:32 pm:

1 - Visual exam with direct white light;

2 - Visual exam with oblique white light;

3 - Visual exam with direct reflection white light;

4 - Exam for any inherently luminescent impressions via laser or alternate light source;

5 - Reflected Ultraviolet Imaging System (RUVIS) exam;

6 - Iodine fuming, with the hope that some of the oily, translucent tar residue may be enhanced (temporarily);

7 - Cyanoacrylate fuming (making sure that your test strip develops well, of course);

8 - Visual exam with direct white light;

9 - Visual exam with oblique white light;

10 - Visual exam with direct reflection white light;

11 - Reflected Ultraviolet Imaging System (RUVIS) exam;

12 - Dye staining with a luminescent dye (such as
Rhodamine 6G);

13 - Exam for any dye-stained luminescing impressions via laser or alternate light source;

14 - Dust with your choice of contrasting color fingerprint powder;

15 - Visual exam with direct white light;

16 - Visual exam with oblique white light;

17 - Visual exam with direct reflection white light;

18 - The final step for non-porous surfaces, after you have done everything and have nothing to lose, is as follows:

Pour some of the contrasting color dusting powder onto a sheet of paper; put on a pair of surgical gloves (or even cloth gloves) and pat the front of your glove-covered fingers into the powder; rub the powder from the gloves gently over the surfaces you have processed for latent prints... the result being that in some instances, you will enhance ridge detail that was previously not identifiable via any of the prior steps. The powder tends to "build-up" on both sides of the three dimensional ridge detail developed in cyanoacrylate ...often producing reverse color impressions with the powder filling-in the furrows. Developed in the early 1980s by Mike Grimm and colleagues in Virginia, this rubbing technique has been successful on many non-porous surfaces at many laboratories in the US and overseas.