1. A method of obtaining a compact representation of a fingerprint image, comprising: providing a stored set of cellular region representations; sub-dividing said image into a plurality of cellular regions; for each cellular region: comparing image information of said each cellular region to each cellular region representation of a plurality of said cellular region representations, where each cellular region representation of said set of cellular region representations is defined by a set of values for a parameter set, said parameter set comprising parameters of ridge angle and phase offset; and, based on said comparison, selecting one cellular region representation of said set of cellular region representations to represent said each cellular region in order to form said compact representation of said fingerprint image.