Types Of Fingerprints

Visible prints
Visible prints, also called patent prints are left in some netural, like blood, that expose them to the naked eye. They can be when blood, dirt, ink or grease on the finger come into contact with a smooth surface and leave a uneven ridge impression that is visible without development.

Latent prints
Latent prints are not apparent to the naked eye. They are formed from the sweat from sebaceous glands on the body or water, salt, amino acids and oils contained in sweat. The sweat and fluids create prints must be developed before they can be seen or photographed. They can be made sufficiently visible by dusting, fuming or chemical reagents.

Impressed prints
Impressed prints are also called plastic prints and are indentations left in soft pliable surfaces, such as clay, wax, paint or another surface that will take the impression. They are visible and can be viewed or photographed without development

Chemicals used to develop prints
There are four kinds of chemical reagents used to demostrate invisible, or latent, fingerprints. They are cyanoacrylate, silver nitrate, iodine, and ninhydrin.

The trade name for cyanoacrylate is super glue. Cyanoacrylate is the main ingredient that makes up 98% of Super Glue.

Silver nitrate is a chemical ingredient found in black-and-white photographic film. When silver nitrate is applied to a latent fingerprint, the chloride found in fingerprint residue interacts with the silver nitrate and forms another compound called silver chloride.

The third chemical used to reveal latent fingerprints is called iodine. When heated up, crystalline iodine releases iodine fumes into a fuming chamber, where the iodine interacts

Basic shapes/patterns of fingerprints
Finger prints are easily classified as there are four different basic shapes of pattern — arches, loops, whorls and composites — which are then subdivided according to things like the numbers of ridges between certain points in the pattern.