Gelatin lifters have been used by crime scene officers for more than a century but are still an indispensable tool in crime scene investigation. In the past, only transparent lifters were used, exclusively for lifting powdered fingerprints. Because gelatin lifters have a number of special characteristics, their use has broadened. A very important use of the black gelatin lifters nowadays is the lifting of shoeprints. Gellifters have a low tack and a certain flexibility that enable them to lift traces (without inclusion of air bubbles) even from surfaces that are irregular (to a certain degree) and/or mechanically weak (paper, for example).
Black gelatin lifters absorb light so strongly, that even very faint shoeprints lifted with them can be photographed satisfactorily upon strong over-exposure.
Gelatin lifters are also used to secure micro traces (for example hairs, glass, paint traces), to visualize indented writing (lecture of H. v.d. Heuvel/Dutch National Forensic Laboratory, 2nd International Conference of the GFS, September 1995, the Hague; see for more information also the section product information), to lift treated finger- and footprints in blood (for example prints stained with Amido Black or Hungarian Red; see Staining of traces in blood) and even to lift fingerprints fumed with cyanoacrylate (Velders, M.J.M., lecture at 1998 IAI conference, see handout).
Gelatin lifters have been used by crime scene officers for more than a century but are still an indispensable tool in crime scene investigation. In the past, only transparent lifters were used, exclusively for lifting powdered fingerprints. Because gelatin lifters have a number of special characteristics, their use has broadened. A very important use of the black gelatin lifters nowadays is the lifting of shoeprints. Gellifters have a low tack and a certain flexibility that enable them to lift traces (without inclusion of air bubbles) even from surfaces that are irregular (to a certain degree) and/or mechanically weak (paper, for example).
