Sharper pictures for Ct. state police

Connecticut state police have launched a new section of their forensics facility, featuring imaging enhancement, forensic photography and an expanded cybercrime unit, The Hartford Courant reports.

The price tag for the new section of the forensic laboratory was relatively cheap - about $20,000 - for the new video enhancing equipment, said Andrew Crumbie, administrator of the lab, and executive assistant to Boyle.

Public safety officials decided to combine the computer crimes unit with the video enhancing and forensic photography units because "it's all interrelated, all technology-based," Crumbie said.

Soon the lab will be able to receive digital images directly from crime scenes from the three state police major crime units. Once received in the lab, forensic scientists can evaluate them and tell detectives what evidence they should collect.

Using the video enhancing software, lab technicians will be able to create high-resolution images from surveillance video, hand-held video cameras and even videos from cell phones, said Laura Teodosio, president of Salient Stills, the Boston-based company that sold the equipment to Connecticut. Images can be darkened, lightened, zoomed in on, and clarified. If there are multiple camera angles in a large area, such as a shopping mall parking lot, the software is able to single out each angle and create a clearer image.