Make a Fake Picture With Famous People to Impress Your Friends and Family

Maybe you want what looks like a picture of yourself and a celebrity together as a joke, or you're out to impress some people. Whatever the reason, modern technology can help you get the snapshot you want.

Steps

Combining Two Photos with a Photo Editor

  1. Choose a celebrity photo. Do an image search for the celebrity (or celebrities) you want to be with in the photo.
    • Look for a high-resolution image. You can always go down in resolution (that is, save a high-res image as low-res), but it's hard to go up.
    • Images taken against a solid colored background will work a lot better than a dynamic or moving background.
    • When you find one you like, right-click and save it to your computer.
    • For maximum believability, choose a seldom-seen photo of the celebrity. A casual snapshot might be better than a professional photo that's been plastered all over the Internet.
  2. Choose a photo of yourself. Once you have the celebrity photo you want, find (or take) a picture of yourself to put into it.
    • If you can, try to find an image that will blend well with your celebrity picture. For example, if there is a spotlight coming from the right on your celebrity image, choose a photo of yourself where there is a strong light source on the right. Also, pay attention to contrast - if the celebrity image is high-contrast, make sure the photo of you matches.
  3. Open both photos in the editing program of your choice. Photoshop is popular but you can also find free image editing programs online such as Gimp. Gimp has all of the same popular features found in Photoshop and it doesn't cost a dime.
  4. Remove the background from your photo. Use the Magic Brush or Magnetic Lasso Tool to cut yourself out of your picture. use a remove brush to "erase" the background. You want the background to become a light white and gray checked background, this means that you are removing any background which will make it lay on top of the second photo better.
  5. Drag the newly-cut image of yourself onto the celebrity picture.
  6. Make adjustments. No matter how closely you tried to match the celebrity image, you'll probably need to make a few adjustments to the final product to make it look more realistic. Here are some things you could try:
    • Use the eraser tool to get rid of extraneous pieces of background that came along with the image of yourself.
    • You may also need to adjust the lighting or contrast of the photo.
    • Make sure you look proportionately sized next to the celebrity (that is, not too short or too tall). You might need to shrink or enlarge the image of yourself. If this is not an option, try placing yourself in the foreground (if you're too big) or the background (if you're too small) of the image.
    • Blend the edges. Drag the blur tool around the image of yourself. This will help your edges fade into the photo, making it look more realistic.
  7. Make sure you have a story ready. People will have questions about the picture. Come up with an amusing anecdote or believable story about how the photo came into existence. People will want to know what was in the gift.

Using Wax Figures or Cut-Outs

  1. Locate a cardboard cut-out of the celebrity, or visit a celebrity wax museum. Here's how to find what you're looking for:
    • Movie theaters, radio stations, and promotional agencies will often have cardboard cut-outs of celebrities on hand, especially if the one you're after has recently starred in a movie. Ask around and see what they have in storage.
    • You can order cardboard celebrity cut-outs online. This might be a good option if you're looking for a celebrity who is older, more obscure, or hasn't recently starred in a big movie. Be ready to pay for the product, though.
    • Visit a wax museum that features celebrity figures. Madam Tussauds is a popular international wax museum chain, located in many large cities. There's also the Movieland Wax Museum and the Hollywood Wax Museum, both located near Los Angeles, California. Be prepared to pay an admission fee to get into the museum.
  2. Take a photo of yourself next to the wax figure or cut-out. Try to pose in a way that looks as natural as possible, or mimics how the celebrity is posed (there are many funny photos like that, and it looks more realistic)
  3. Edit the photo. If you want to make the photo look even more realistic, open it in a photo-editing program. (Even cheap or free programs, such as iPhoto or Picasa, will work for this.) Here are some ways to doctor the photo:
    • Get rid of any red-eye. If you have red-eye and the celebrity doesn't, that's a dead giveaway.
    • Make the photo blurrier, or lower-resolution. This will help obscure the differences in the way the light hits the fake celebrity and the way it hits you.
    • Try using black and white or sepia toning. As with making the photo lower resolution, this will help hide subtle differences in color or shading.

Tips

  • If you're using photo editing software, consider starting small by adding your face on someone else until you gain mastery of the program. It has to be a somewhat decent quality or the photo is not plausible.
  • One of the easiest tools to use is known as the "Rubber Stamp Tool" (found in both Photoshop and Gimp). Alt-click on the source image where you want to take the image from, then click and "paint" with the mouse on the other picture. Clean up the edges around the rubber stamp tool with a finer point rubber stamp tool or the blur tool, as well as erasing the edges left on your picture.
  • When using the magic eraser or lasso tool it's important to remember that patience and slow steady movements will produce a much cleaner result than rushing it.

Things You'll Need

  • A photo editing program (free or professional quality)
  • A photo of a celebrity
  • A photo of yourself
  • A cut-out or wax figure of a celebrity (optional)

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