1. A contactless fingerprint acquisition and processing method, comprising: detecting and acquiring an object image, wherein acquiring the object image comprises illuminating an object with a light source having a polarizer, receiving data from a first detector assembly and a second detector assembly that each comprise a polarizer, wherein the polarizers of the two detector assemblies are out of phase such that the polarizer of the first detector assembly is set to match the phase of the light source polarizer and the polarizer of the second detector is out of phase with said polarizer of the first detector assembly; converting the object image into a fingerprint image, wherein the converting comprises differencing the data received from first detector assembly with the data received from the second detector assembly using registration information to increase a contrast between ridges and valleys of the fingerprint image; and at least one of identifying and verifying the fingerprint image.