The invention concerns the field of image processing and, in particular, a method for improving the image of fingerprints with the aim of facilitating the extraction of parameters necessary for carrying out fingerprint recognition. The invention provides a method for improving a fingerprint image comprising at least the following steps: normalizing the initial image and determining the useful area of the image, and is characterized in that it also contains successive steps consisting of: splitting the image into a number of blocks; calculating the FFT of each block; determining frequencies of image blocks from said FFT; applying Gabor filters of parameters determined by these frequencies, and; determining orientations of the image.