Attached is a jpeg of a photo I call My Money Shot.
If you can’t see the image, please read further. If you can see the image, please read on anyway.
I had a shoot last week to photograph a wine tasting event that was a fundraiser. In addition, there was a silent auction as well as a 50/50 drawing. At one point people were bringing around a basket of 50/50 tickets and crumpled up bills (American money). I took a quick photo of it and moved on.
Later that evening I downloaded everything that I had shot that night, even though it was late. 
I had shot both raw files and jpegs so I did a quick spot check by clicking on some of the jpeg files. When I clicked on one of the jpegs in Photoshop CS6 (a non-cloud app), I got a plain grey PS background with a message that said
“This application does not support the editing of banknote images. For more information, select the information button below for Internet-based information on restrictions for copying and distributing banknote images or go to http://www.rulesforuse.org.”
I have been in business a long time and I’ve used Photoshop since its inception, but this was the first time this had ever happened to me.
I was very surprised for a couple of reasons.
- I was not using a cloud-based app (although I was online)
- My photo was a picture of crumpled up money – not a picture of a complete banknote that I could possibly counterfeit.
The next day I attended Photo Plus Expo and I spoke with some of the Adobe folks at the show. They seemed a bit skeptical of my story. Finally, one of the reps pulled a dollar bill out of his pocket and took a picture of it with his phone. Then he brought it into his mobile Lightroom app and he had no problem opening up the file. At that point, I was questioning if it even had happened to me. But I was determined to find out if it would happen again and decided to try it on another computer when I got home.
I brought the files into my laptop that has the same Photoshop CS6 app installed and the same thing happened. I wasn’t allowed to open the jpegs. I tried twice, once while I was online and once when I wasn’t. The same thing occurred both times – I couldn’t open the jpegs. 
Then I discovered that I was allowed to open the raw files. This really perplexed me because it made no sense and it wasn’t consistent with its own policy.
Ultimately, I delivered all the images using the raw files. Granted, it wouldn’t have been the end of the world if I hadn’t been able to open “my money shot”. But, I persisted because at that point I was on a mission to clear up my confusion.
I never really did figure out why this happened and why it happened with this particular image that seemed so harmless. To be honest, it’s downright creepy. I’d love to hear from people who may have experienced the same thing. Or even hear from some folks who can shed more light on the matter.
Journeys of a Hybrid 