Can’t open Money illustrations & images in Photoshop CS?

And how, pray, would you differentiate between "spreading the word" and "whining"?

The postings in this thread are serving two purposes:
Informing Adobe of our dismay at the way in which they hobbled Photoshop CS; Informing other users of the issue and telling them how to get round the problem.

And how do you propose that we discover flaws or omissions in an application if we don’t buy it? Adobe did not disclose the Money Trap when the program originally went on sale.

I have read all 147 posts with interest.
It wasn’t aware of the fact that InDesign had replaced Quark. I’m sure Adobe will be delighted to read it, if they bother with this forum at all.
I am a graphic designer working in the Las Vegas area. I have used Adobe products since Illustrator 3 and Photoshop 2.5. While money images are not as predominant as they were a few years ago, there is still a huge demand for them in this market.
I am amazed that Adobe would do this. Even if you don’t consider the rights-infrigement aspect, how could they think for a minute that this would put a dent in counterfeiters’ business? How could they think it was worth alienating their customer base?
I will do all I can to get this lame-brained decision overturned, and in the meantime will hold on to version 7.

PhotoSpin have just e-mailed me this Extract from PC Graphics Report, February 2004 Issue No. 21:

<<
COUNTERFEIT DETECTION
Try scanning a $20 bill with Photoshop CS, and you will get a message saying, "This application does not support the unauthorized processing of banknote images." The latest version of Photoshop has a built-in Counterfeit Detection System (CDS) that will detect when an image of money is being opened and will stop the application from doing so.

This software was written for a group of international banks in an attempt to stop counterfeiting of money from many countries. It seems that there are certain lines, shapes, and tones in recently designed money that will trigger this software. There has been a storm of controversy on Adobe’s message boards concerning this issue. People who use images of money in their work have to use earlier versions. Even pictures of people holding money have triggered the software, as have images of dollars waving like a flag.

The controversy seems to be based on several different perspectives – freedom of expression, the ability to do one’s work, and the fact that Adobe did not announce that they had implemented CDS until a user complained.

Many users are very angry about Adobe’s silence on the matter. A couple of days after the controversy started, Kevin Conner, senior product manager for Photoshop, posted a lengthy explanation about the motivation to include the software.

"The average consumer is never going to encounter this in their daily use," Connor said. "It just didn’t seem like something meaningful to communicate." He further stated that the detection slows down the application by a fraction of a second when opening each file, that there are legal and workable ways to get money into Photoshop (buying doctored images from authorized companies), and that Adobe had no intention of becoming "big brother" and controlling what we can and cannot do with software. Finally, he said, Adobe hopes "that it’s not a huge inconvenience for that small group of customers who do need to reproduce these images in their graphic design work."

The discussion continues at the Photoshop Lounge on the Adobe Forums (www.adobe.com/support/forums/main.html). In the meantime, someone has already written a patch that, when installed in the Photoshop folder, will disable the Counterfeit Detection System. Reports are that Jasc has placed the same detection software in Paint Shop Pro. The new version of Corel Graphics Suite, to be released this month, will not include CDS.

PC Graphics Report
February 2004
Issue No. 21
www.pcgraphicsreport.com/Sample.html

Corel are obviously sensing an opportunity here but, meanwhile, does anyone know where this Patch can be found — and what it is called?

Ann,

I found the patch in question after a couple of Google searches, but it was in the form of a PC ‘.exe’ file, so it’s obviously for the Windows version. Unfortunately, I deleted it and only remember the word Patch and the ".exe" part.

[EDITED: Ann]