Photoshop CS does indeed include a counterfeit deterrence system (CDS) to prevent the illegal duplication of banknotes. I did find this conversation in a Photoshop community support board, in which an Adobe employee explains that the “CDS system” (counterfeit deterrence system, with a redundancy) has been a “feature … since Photoshop CS (8.0) released in 2003” and is a matter of “stay on the good side of law enforcement.” Accordingly, in an online forum (ah, good old forums) called The Photoshop Cafe, a post from 2004 reproduces an allegedly official statement from Kevin Connor (a longtime Photoshop manager whose name is misspelled in the post). I wrote to Adobe to ask for an official statement or policy on Photoshopping images of money, but never heard back. Even in countries that allow some limited use of banknote images, there are specific rules and requirements.īut of course, country-to-country rules and requirements don’t matter if you’re uniformly prohibited from importing images of money into Photoshop. Which appears to be the case, at least theoretically. The counterfeiting of currency is a crime, and while restrictions vary from country to country, in some countries, any reproduction of banknote images - even for artistic or advertising uses - is strictly forbidden. When I tried, here’s what happened: (screenshot by the author)Ĭlicking on that “Information” button takes you to the website of the Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group, specifically a page titled “Banknotes & Counterfeit Deterrence,” which warns the visitor quite sternly:Įvery country has legal restrictions on the reproduction of banknote images. Because it’s not just that you can’t Photoshop - as in edit in the Adobe program - money you can’t even load an image of a CAN$5 banknote that’s already defaced to picture Spock and say “live long and prosper” into Photoshop. This may not come as news to everyone (someone on Reddit discovered it three years ago), but it was a surprise to us at Hyperallergic. When I was editing our story about the phenomenon, I discovered something curious: you can’t Photoshop money. You may recall that last month, when actor Leonard Nimoy died, Canadians went into a frenzy “spocking” their $5 bills - aka drawing on the banknotes in order to turn former Canadian prime minister Wilfrid Laurier into Spock.
A “spocked” CAN$5 bill (image via Facebook)
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