hooray for censorship

[egypturnash]

Hey, artists. I think you definitely don't want to upgrade to Photoshop 8/CS.

Seems it won't let you do much with images of money any more... here's some in-depth analysis of the limitations.

Comments

[hydra-velsen.livejournal.com]

I heard Dematrix bitching about this too. Evidently it also detects the euro, the Pound, the Yen, and even some lesser known currencies.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

*nod* Given the way Adobe jerks the interface around every release, many artsts are probably still using 5 or 6 - there's a point where you start balancing cute new features against annoying, oblique interface. And then you add misfeatures like this!

[pseudomanitou.livejournal.com]

I see a lawsuit coming from several stock photo companies in advertising/design circles. I can't tell you how many photos are in stock photo books of money and basic currency...
I think I can show you though...

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

It's going to affect just about everyone involved in graphic arts, one way or the other! Images of money are powerful in this culture. I haven't ever done anything that needed some, but I'd be pissed if I needed the power of 'money' iconography and my tools denied it to me.

[goforthbyday.livejournal.com]

thanks! i hadn't heard about that yet. one more reason for me to hold off on upgrading. :)

[strredwolf.livejournal.com]

It makes me glad of two things:

1. Gimp 2.0 prerelease is out.

2. Any currency I make will be my own CardCash!!!

[protocat.livejournal.com]

Someone with a copy of SoftICE (kernel-level debugger) or IDA Pro (advanced disaassembler) and a lot of patience can probably undo this without too much hassle and more than likely... someone will, though only those 'illegitimate' users would use or know of such a patch. However, I am in agreement that no one should have had to do any of this.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

And someone else will have to do the same for the Mac version.

Unless someone can manage to do a bit of espionage, get the full Photoshop source tree, disable this 'feature' in the source, then compile for Mac and Windows both...

Meanwhile, I'm sticking with PS7 until a version comes out that has the required feature of 'no longer crases in the version of the OS I just updated to'. Because all I mostly use it for is scanning and the occasional bit of texture silliness.

[ursulav.livejournal.com]

I have never done anything with images of money, but man, this makes me want to do so...

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

You too? I'm glad I'm not the only one with the authory-denial reflex.

Hmmm... How to do all those fiddly details and engraving lines in AI without going mad...

[mattlazycat.livejournal.com]

One post on the Adobe forum thread claims that the latest version of PaintShop Pro also has similar code. It would seem that this not an Adobe "inunnovation", but rather something that some higher agency has pressured them into adding. Considering that measures such as these are all but useless if they're not ubiquitous, I'd expect to see a lot more packages featuring this kind of behaviour.

The good news is that apparently this works in the same way as some photocopiers in that it detects a pattern of obscured dots on the new US$20 and many other currencies. These dots are apparently blue on the new $20, but they're yellow on my £10 note. This means two things:

1. Provided that these dots are missing, you can produce artistic mockups and other derivative works. Except in the UK, of course, where the design of the currency is copyright :)
2. Adobe isn't using some insidious image-hunting techniques that can be subverted by shadowy government agencies looking for terrorists and other pesky unamerican troublemakers like communists and the targets of the moral panic du jour. This algorithm can only be used to detect currency.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

the latest version of PaintShop Pro also has similar code

True - but I think pretty much all the artist pros I want to give a heads-up to on this use PS, not PSP.

Yeah, apparantly it's a certain dot pattern. Once I find out for sure what this dot pattern is, I believe I may start including it in all my artwork from now on... it'd a nice accent for my signature!

The thing is... it's checking every image you load, every image you paste in, every image you bring into the program by any means. (There's some kind of hole involving bringing it into ImageReady and a special path between that and PS, but I'm sure that'll be plugged in a maintenance patch soon.)

And... the iconography of money is a powerful thing. By not allowing people to manipulate images of it, avenues of commentary are being forcibly shut off. By a little chunk of dumb code.

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this really bites. No more Brad Pitts on fifty dollar bills...

Not that I've done that or anything... and anything else I would say is political rambling, so... I think I'll just stick to 7.0 for now.

[mattlazycat.livejournal.com]

And... the iconography of money is a powerful thing. By not allowing people to manipulate images of it, avenues of commentary are being forcibly shut off. By a little chunk of dumb code.

Well to me it's less about the code than the people who forced it to be included, but yeah, I'm not disagreeing with you that it's dumb and pointless. :) I potatoshopped a dollar-bill (http://lazycat.org/postcards/include.html) myself not so long ago (though not very well, at that). I can easily understand people getting pissed off that they can't do that any more.

I wonder what they aim to achieve by stopping image manipulation - it's not like you can just print off a fresh copy of the note and spend it. The inks are special, there's the plastic ribbon with the printing on it, the texturing, the watermark, the material of the notes themselves. It's bizarre that they'd restrict this aspect.

Also, since it's dots and the relative distances between them, I wonder if taking photos in perspective, or in larger numbers would make any difference? Or scanning in two halves and using photoshop to stitch them together again (after all, putting each half in a layer and setting one to "Difference" is basically designed to make such a thing piss-easy :). Sure, there'd be some artistic compromise involved, but you're not a real artist unless you've suffered for the craft ;)

[403.livejournal.com]

These dots are apparently blue on the new $20, but they're yellow on my £10 note.

Which suggests that placing an appropriately coloured sheet of translucent plastic - say a sheet for an overhead projector - between scanner bed and currency could neatly sidestep the problem when combined with the colour adjustments that are available in both programs.

[ghostangel.livejournal.com]

Thats really odd... :/ I guess I'll be keeping PS7 on my machine after all. Though Image Ready CS takes some of the headache out of placing text and cutting images that was in previous versions. I guess maybe i'll keep that, and just nuke PS8.

Does it send the info to anyplace? Or does it just crash?

[prickvixen.livejournal.com]

I think they did it deliberately in order to fuck with my work.

[markpasc.livejournal.com]

Ooh.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

I originally was going to begin this entry with "Hey, Ashy!".