Converting Color Fingerprint Image to Black & White

Question

I need to convert a sample fingerprint image into black and white, where the finger color acts as a foreground color and the background color is black. It's needed in MATLAB code format.... For example, I need to convert image from:
_{(source: wikimedia.org)}

to a black-and-white image.

EDIT: I used multiple masks, like prewitt: http://i43.tinypic.com/1z7w60.jpg Canny Detector: http://i44.tinypic.com/2ujtt6u.jpg

I'm not getting lines on blurry here.

Answer 1

As Shai said, you can only expect good results in regions of the image that are in focus. Try starting with these algorithms:

Link 1

Link 2