All, Had a question that kinf of pertains to copyright. Let's say I download something like the Super morphing sheet prop and want to add a dollar texture to make it look like a dollar bill. Is it ok to snag a picture of a dollar bill off the net? I am just wondering. If it's not, anyone know where I can get a realistic morphing buck that I can use in commercial and non commercial renders? Thanks, S2C

http://www.moneyfactory.com/document.cfm/18/117

Title 18, Section 504 of the United States Code

Reproduction of Currency

Authority: 18 UNITED STATES CODE; 504: Treasury Directive Number 15-56 FR 48539 (September 15,1993) 411.1 Color illustrations authorized.

(a) Notwithstanding any provision of chapter 25 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code, authority is hereby given for the printing, publishing or importation, or the making or importation of the necessary plates or items for such printing or publication, of color illustrations of U.S. currency provided that:

1. The illustration must be of a size less than three-fourths or more than one and one-half, in linear dimension, of each part of any matter so illustrated;
2. The illustration must be one sided; and
3. All negatives, plates, digitized storage medium, graphic files, magnetic medium, optical storage devices, and any other thing used in the making of the illustration that contain an image of the illustration or any part thereof shall be destroyed and or deleted or erased after their final use in accordance with this section.

Right. So don't forget to remove your hard drive and break it up with a hammer after you do the image.

Format C: YES!!

...Which is why most dollars you'll see on stage or in 3D are, on close examination "Vito-dollars" or "Bank of Fred" or something like. Wonder what the law is for repro of yen notes or baht, euro or pounds (all of which I have from my travels and have been tempted to scan)?

Nomuse, you'd be surprised how difficult today's software can make scanning your foreign bank notes. For instance, Adobe's CS, from what I hear, won't accept scans of money from practically any world bank - it's got a built in sniffer that looks for money from many of the world's banks (others more knowledgeable than I feel free to correct me!). Check out the PhotoShop forum for more info. My impression is that scanning money from any country should be avoided. Stick with the funny money like you mentioned. Later, Jack

already working on it. In fact, it may help my use of photshop and tie into some work I am doing over at another site (no offense, but my art is graphic so I post to Renderotica.com) However, I am planning on doing some models when I get better. I am mediocre to very poor right now. Thanks, S2C

Yeah I scanned real money for monopoly and poker games, The bills are only one sided so they cant be confused with real money, It makes the game a little more fun I think.

The following is a quote from Kevin Connor of Adobe Corporation regarding Adobe's decision to scan every image you attempt to open in Photoshop CE, and to disallow images of currency with a note saying the image is illegal, with a link to a website that in fact tells you it IS legal to edit images of currency. this apeared in the official Adobe forums. "As someone at Adobe who was involved in the decision to include counterfeit deterrence in Photoshop CS, let me finally provide you with a response to all of these concerns and questions. Sorry for the delay!: Photoshop CS does indeed include a counterfeit deterrence system (CDS) to prevent the illegal duplication of banknotes. The CDS was created by a consortium of central banks from around the world. We, along with other hardware and software manufacturers, have included CDS in our products at their request to address the threat posed by the use of digital technologies in the counterfeiting of banknotes. There are other software products from other companies that already use this same technology. There are also hardware products that use the same or similar technology. For example, most color copiers sold today will not allow you to copy currency. As digital imaging technology advances, becoming more broadly available and user friendly, the old barriers to currency reproduction are becoming less effective. The unscrupulous are taking advantage of the functionality that is being provided to the vast majority of honest users for the purposes of counterfeiting currency. In the US and around the world, counterfeiting through digital means is increasing exponentially, and retailers and the general public--including our own customers--are at risk. Counterfeit currency is essentially a hot potato. Whoever holds it last, loses. The person who loses isn't necessarily the counterfeiter. There's no government body in place to "reimburse" people who, through no fault of their own, get paid with currency that turns out to be counterfeit. In our implementation of CDS, we've worked very hard to balance the need to protect these unsuspecting victims of counterfeiting along with the need to continue to provide a product that efficiently does what honest customers need it to do. There appear to be several major concerns and objections repeated throughout this message thread, so I'll try to address each one individually: 1. Performance: CDS does not cause any noticeable slowdown in Photoshop performance. During most operations performed in Photoshop, CDS is not used at all. When it is used, the performance impact often is just a fraction of a second. 2. Legal use of notes: It is true that the current implementation of CDS will prevent you from scanning in your own banknotes even if your usage intent is entirely within legal boundaries. Regulations for using banknote images vary by country. It is the responsibility of the central bank in each country to provide images that can be used within the legal guidelines of that country. In other words, if you want to legally reproduce images of the new $20US bills on a Web site or in a marketing brochure, you can contact the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing for legal images that can be opened and manipulated in Photoshop CS. (You can visit them at www.moneyfactory.com.) Similar solutions should be available in other countries. If you find that your central bank is not providing adequate support to permit legal uses of their banknote images, then you should let them know. 3. Adobe's intentions: Please be assured that this implementation of CDS is not a step down the road towards Adobe becoming "Big Brother." We know that one of the reasons people love Photoshop is because it's an incredibly flexible tool that can be used for so many different things. That's also one of the reasons we at Adobe enjoy working on new versions. Finding ways to prevent you from doing things in Photoshop really doesn't interest us! Moreover, the CDS is not Adobe technology, but was provided by the central banks, who would have no reason to want to restrict anything other than bank notes. Counterfeiting is really a special case in which we could see how our own technology advances were making it easier to commit crimes and we were asked to implement a solution that would have minimal impact on honest customers. Yes, there is some impact, in that you need to contact your central bank for images, but our hope is 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. It also provides the central banks with an opportunity to better educate customers on exactly what is and isn't legal usage. Of course, CDS in Photoshop CS is essentially a 1.0 implementation of a feature, analogous to the state of the layers palette in Photoshop 3.0. We realize that there may be room for improvement, particularly if there are corner usage cases that weren't taken into account in our current designs. We do want to hear about your concerns, and we definitely want to hear if there's a specific problem that this implementation has created for you. As with any Photoshop feature, we depend on hearing from customers so that we can make continual improvements release after release." Of Course, I have already seen fixes/cracks for this on the web! Come to think of it, I do have an image of a dollar bill, and have opened it in my copy of Photoshop CS and nothing happened.

and of course they have somehow conficated ALL previous versions of photoshop right??? sheese!!

A fraction of a second? And you can still -- presumably -- open up the "legal" images you got from the government? I wonder what it is actually looking for?

Attached Link: www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/eurion.pdf

*I wonder what it is actually looking for?* Ah, I happen to know the answer to this. The newer printed notes from around the world all use the Eurion constellation in some form, somewhere on the money. I've seen it on Australian notes and American bills, and I'm very sure the Euro has it, as well. I think all the world banks managed to agree on putting this constellation on their money for exactly this purpose. See attached link for more detailed information, or do a Google search for "Eurion constellation". Personally, I think Adobe are full of crap on the matter. There are plenty of perfectly legitimate reasons to scan a bank note. bonni