Forging Bank Notes In Photoshop
If you’ve ever tried to open a scanned image of a bank note in Photoshop, then you too may have noticed the warning about opening bank note images in the application. There must be some clever image analysis going on behind the scenes to detect the fact it is a tenner or fiver you’re trying to meddle with. Anyone have any idea how this is done? Not because I’m up to anything dodgy of course, I’m just curious about these types of thing.
The warning points you in the direction of the Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group for more information:
A counterfeit deterrence system (CDS) has been developed by the CBCDG to deter the use of personal computers, digital imaging equipment and software in the counterfeiting of banknotes. The CDS has been voluntarily adopted by several hardware and software manufacturers, and prevents personal computers and digital imaging tools from capturing or reproducing the image of a protected banknote.
It just goes to show how much time and thought goes into developing the programmes we take for granted.
Of course, if you were wanting to do something dodgy with the scanned images, you could just open them in Fireworks.
Hi, I scanned in a bank note a long time ago, maybe Photoshop 3 with no problems. I guess this is a relatively new feature? ;-)
This is very clever that the software actually notices a scanned image of a bank note. Brilliant. Great article.
its actually a series of dots printed on the note that the modern software picks up based on some algorythm apparently!! Its used on official documents as well degrees etc