Didn’t know that black powder would fluoresce did you? Well I did not either until one day several years ago at the Louisiana IAI Conference. Several crime scene officers and I were talking about how the officer in the field likes to use fluorescent powder but the lab does not like it because the latent examiners like black latent on a white card. I started mixing powders and low and behold I came up with a powder that fluoresces orange on a dark surface and black on a light surface and when you lift the latent it goes on a white backing card. Now everyone in happy.

All I had to do when I got back to the office was create the formula for the powder in both standard and magnetic powders. This sounded easy and three weeks later I finally got it right.

What you now have is a powder that you can use on various surfaces and use your light source with powder on dark surfaces and on light surfaces you treat it like if you had regular black powder. When done lift the latent print after you photograph it and place the lift on a white backing card.

The Fluorescent Black Standard or Magnetic Powder can be purchased through the Lynn Peavey Company and samples are available.