How do police see every detail in a finger print because when I looked at me and my friends, they were very similar? – Secondary 11

Question: How do police see every detail in a finger print because when I looked at me and my friends, they were very similar?
- Keywords:
  finger print,
  police
Asked by preshous333 to Faye, Martin, Mus, Pete on 15 May 2012. This question was also asked by cheese2000.
- Faye Didymus answered on 15 May 2012:
  
  This is a really good question! A forensic scientist would be able to tell you more about this but the simple answer is that every person has a unique fingerprint – no two people are the same! Even though they may look similar to the naked eye, under a powerful microscope every fingerprint presents a slightly different picture and that’s how police can tell two people apart. There are lots of different classification systems for fingerprints that I expect the police would use to help them. It’s all computerised these days so I’m sure that makes their jobs a lot quicker!

Question: How do police see every detail in a finger print because when I looked at me and my friends, they were very similar?