Objective Skin Property Assessment for Adaptive Fingerprint Image Acquisition and Processing

Fingerprint image quality depends not only on the acquisition technology but also on the physical condition of the examined skin. This study presents a portable multisensor system for objective skin assessment prior to fingerprint acquisition and evaluates its use under real forensic conditions. The system measures skin color, surface temperature, galvanic skin response, and relevant environmental parameters. Measurements were performed on 50 deceased individuals and complemented by fingerprint acquisition using multiple sensing technologies. The results revealed substantial variability in post-mortem skin properties, while no individual measured parameter provided a sufficiently strong relationship with fingerprint image quality to serve as a universal predictor. These findings motivate a skin-aware acquisition framework in which multisensor information may support future decision-making for skin conditioning, sensor selection, and controlled image processing. Illustrative generative-enhancement cases further demonstrate that improved fingerprint image-quality scores do not necessarily indicate preservation of identity-bearing ridge information.