1. A method of acquiring an image of a machine-readable symbol, the method comprising: illuminating the machine-readable symbol with a plurality of illumination sources disposed relative to the machine-readable symbol to define a plurality of distinct illumination geometries; for each illumination geometry, obtaining a respective raw image of the machine-readable symbol, wherein at least one of the respective raw images includes a dark region; and combining information from the respective raw images to generate a single image of the machine-readable symbol.