scanning currency and Espon tech support

I'll PM you on the note and mailing, let's do that. My purpose with the printing is pretty specific, hence my reasoning on using a high quality printer. I do photography for a living, and run into situations where someone buys one print, and then scans it and makes prints for friends and family. So the one they get from me is high quality, the best I can deliver, but they do not have the rights to reproduce the image. It would be mighty slick (for me, at least) if their scanner announced that they are not allowed to scan the image. Or perhaps I'd have a few upset customers, I might need to think a bit on that one.

In any event, if you don't mind mailing the note, I'll send it back with a print that you can try to scan.

Dave

 

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Hmmm...I'm curious how this comes out too, but for the opposite reason. I'm pretty sure I'm guilty of buying the smallest package of 'school photos' or the photo from whatever team sport one of the kids happens to be playing and somehow winding up with extras for the family!

On another note, I've printed a few of those nice hardcover 'photo books' that several of the online photo printing sites offer and I like scanning and mixing in some of the professional prints to make the book a little nicer. Most of the times though, it has been photos taken on a cruise ship and they do extend reproduction rights to the purchaser with those.

 

Okay, an update on this. I received two notes from Daggarjon, and jumped in to do the experiment. They scan just fine on my (older) HP scanner, and the idea was to print them, and mail them back to him to see if his scanner would recognize these prints as "banknotes" or whether the printing was not high enough quality to reproduce whatever trick is being used to recognize banknotes.

So first think after the scan, load them into Photoshop CS2 (which I have not upgraded to CS4 because my wife has been unable to view some of my previous banknote scans with it). No go! CS2 has caught these (Euro and CA notes), whereas it had no issue with new US$ bills. Interesting, and here I thought I'd managed to stop upgrading at just the right point. There is a difference though, CS2 will let me edit the files just fine, it just won't allow printing, whereas CS4 will not even let me edit the files. So I edit them up, and go hunting for another printing app.

I have two other printing apps on my system. I don't use them, but they seemed convenient enough to try out. Apple's "Picture Viewer" and MS Picture Manager. Both of these are generating inconsistent results, but mostly are printing about half the image and then the url http://www.rulesforuse.org on the other half of the page. I'm pretty convinced this text is not coming from the graphics program, but being generated by my printer directly. I did manage to get a full print of the Euro note, but cannot get more than about half of the CA note printed at actual size. With the CA note reduced about 10%, I did manage a full print of it.

I'll send these prints off to you with your notes, Daggarjon. I'm still curious as to whether you can get a scan of the notes or whether your scanner will recognize it as a banknote.

By the way, I subsequently scanned these prints (the two prints of whole notes, one actual size, the other reduced), and Photoshop does recognize them as banknotes again! So I'm very interested to know if a "new" scanner would interrupt the scan of the printed note.

Dave

 

This must be just photoshop, because nothing like this has happened while using the GIMP.

 

Correct, the only application I have that seems to recognize them as banknotes was photoshop. I knew that going in, the question I'm trying to resolve is whether a current scanner will catch these prints as banknotes or not.

Dave

 

i will try to scan the images you send once i recieve them.

It interesting to see the issue that arrise from scanning, even when using older apps. I dont have so much an issue with PS preventing printing so long as i can scan. Although i do recognize there are 'legal' reasons to print images of currency that others might want to pursue. My objective is only to be able to scan, edit if need be, and then post to the internet.

I did find my emails from the gentleman at Bank of Canada giving me authorization to post BoC banknotes. I also just found today the email i recieved from the Bank of Mexico authorizing the same. Its tough though, that even with the authorization, its doesnt matter much to the apps that are stopping me (all of us).

I have yet to find a flatbed scanner by any known company. Most have all gone to the all in 1 gizmos. I am a little weary about going with a somewhat generic company, especially if buying online. OfficeMax had 1 in their store, but it wasnt hooked up to anything, and they told me they wouldnt when i asked if there was a way so i could test to see how well it worked. At $200, i thought they might be more willing to make a sale. And theywonder why sales are down? lol

 

Well, here is a small update

my wife wont let me by a scanner she says we dont 'need' one. I try to tell her i NEED one, but she always responds that i want one, not need one lol

but just last week, she told me we needed a new printer. I told her we didnt need one, that she wanted one. I really put my foot down on this one.

So that night as we were shopping for a new printer .... i refused to buy an all in 1 bugger. It really was a tough task. we went to 3 stores, and looked at all 6 of the models they had (combined) that onyl did printing, and finally decided on a Samsung color laser. prints fast, nice detail and was a nice price. I told her i refused to by a cheap printer for $60 that would only break or die in a short time. this one has a 2 year all inclusive warranty

So, while i do not have a new scanner yet (still working on the "well you got a new printer' angle lol) i did recieve the images from Dave.

Dave, i will try to scan them tonight and see what happens. Are you hoping that i will get stopped by my scanner because of it detecting the image as currency, or are you hoping i am able to scan?

 

I have an Epson All-in-One that's been going strong for years now. Of course, now that I said that....

 

Good luck with the sales pitch to your wife

In an ironic way, what I'm hoping is that your scanner will not scan the prints, and that it will think they are banknotes. The concept was to see whether one might integrate "banknote-like" features into a photographic print, to keep it from being scanable.

Thanks
Dave

 

Well Dave, the Euro image did NOT scan, while the Canada image did.

I did notice, however, that the Euro image was 'different' i some manner. The Euro image was alot darker then the note. The Canada note was closer to how the actual note looks, but doesnt show nearly as much detail in the holofoil strip as the Euro image does.

I noticed on the back of the printed images, you named 2 different imaging applications. What is the meaning of those? Is that how you aquired each image?

so to answer your question, i guess the answer is YES, you can incooprerate the security feature into an image - but only 50% of the time??. But since they keep that information strictly confidentail... so far... im not sure how you might add it to non-currecny images. Plus, why the Euro and not the Canada note?

Ok, as a last ditch test, i blocked the holofoil on the Euro... and it scanned perfectly!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i did try that before on the real note... but i just tried the original Euro note again, blocking the holofoil again ... and it scanned just fine. SO is the anti scanning for the euro embedded in the holofoil??? or are there more hidden 'hot spots'?

 

Ah, the mystery continues! Thanks for doing this, it's interesting to hear the results. I printed the two images with those two different programs, since Photoshop wouldn't print either one, and no program I had was willing to print both of them. Since they're not particularly professional programs, I'm not surprised that their color handling wasn't too good.

As of yet, I don't think any of us knows what the particular characteristics of the files are, that make them recognizable by scanners, printers, etc, but it's clear that a 300dpi print can adequately simulate a banknote to trick the scanner. That was what I was looking to know, so thanks for testing it out!

Dave

 

scanning and printing

this blocking software is now everywhere, in scanners, editing programms and printers

scanning works well with HP 2400 scannjet, scan to tiff for example.
open image with PS cs4 Bridge, link to PS by for example double clicking on it in bridge.
Opens in PS, save as PS document. This is your base.
Save as JPEG and save to memory stick.

Insert memory stick into Printer (works with Epsone R245) and print streight from memory.

Good luck