Banknote Database made by collectors, for collectors
Behold the Special Raster
July 18, 2023 @ 20:16
There are a multitude of security printing software suites. Agfa’s Fortuna or Arziro, Guardsoft, KBA ONE Suite, and Jura’s Corvina. Most are plugins that work with existing Adobe programs to export via a printer of choice (like HP). These programs aren’t just meant for banknotes but are used to design any security documents such as driving licenses, passports, ID cards, bonds, and others. Naturally, they’re all very secretive and aren’t available to the general public. You can find screenshots and tutorials if you look online hard enough, and have google translate, but none of that will be posted here. The old art of engraving, with its interdots, mainlines, and crosslines has been largely supplanted by digital rendering. China publicly reconstructed their banknote artwork from physical to digital in the last decade, as it’s likely many other issuers did as well. Microprinting has been around since the early 20th century, if not earlier. Austria-Hungary famously used a wavy background with word art style text as a background, over 100 years ago. Microprinting are elements on a banknote that are difficult or impossible to see with the naked eye, often consisting of elements less than .2 mm in size. Another security feature often used, similar to microprinting, is screening.
Screening takes an image and then separates it out into its various color components. It’s then run through a pattern and output as a similar image, only it’s now made up of the secondary image that was filtered through. This is especially obvious on Gibraltar’s modern banknotes, where the portrait of the Queen is made up of tiny denomination numbers instead of plain pixels. Sometimes screening doesn’t work out from an aesthetic or cost perspective. Kyrgyzstan changed their notes from a screening process on the portraits to simpler intaglio engraving.
A simple graphic explaning the screening process for an image.
Computer programs have been used to design various features of banknotes for decades. The Netherlands and Ireland started experimenting with computerized backgrounds in the 1960s and 70s. The “Monopoly” series in the Netherlands had parts created by a programmed plotter called Coragraph from 1970 for moire patterns. By 1993 Croatian graphic artist Vilko Žiljak used computers almost entirely in the design of the first Croatian Kuna. During the same time period, France used a computer program called Adagio to print the fine lines on its last series of Francs. In the late 90s, a company in Hungary called Glenisys created a software package to design banknotes on PC. Later iterations of that Glenisys software, now owned by Jura, are probably responsible for most banknote designs today. At least as far as what is made public.
Since about 2015, a new style of microprinting has come into use as software has developed. The Special Raster, the name given to the process at least publicly by the National Bank of Poland on press releases but also simply a button that exists in the security printing software. The special raster enhances microprinting by forming an entire background that rarely if ever repeats. It’s generally invisible, but when you look closely, some delightful things can be found. I’ve asked printers and banknote security experts to define this new style of Special Raster, but it doesn’t appear to have a specific name. Goznak has gone all out with the special raster, printing more and more elaborate micro-scenes on new ruble notes. The style extends to Norway, Armenia, Poland, and likely many other countries. Some examples of the special raster style are below, can you spot which country each is from?
