Some people are so good at manipulating and altering images, their fake photos get featured in the most prestigious magazines around the globe! I’ve personally seen most of these pics before and thought “wow, that’s a one in a billion shot!”. Of course, now it turns out that I was a fool to trust my eyes. Still, the craftsmanship, if you can call it that, is incredible, and even though they are fakes, these 15 pictures still look cool AF.
1. “Horse” on a horse?
Can you imagine being born with a birthmark resembling the word “human” across your body? That would really be something special! Too bad there’s no chance of that happening, just like there’s no way a horse would have “horse” on its back, of course, of course. In fact, the photo was digitally manipulated for a “Spell It Out” competition for a Photo Effects Contest.
2. Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor
Now, I personally don’t understand why this photo made such an uproar when it first surfaced, but it’s pretty cool to see Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor in the same shot! Naturally, the photo turned out to be a composite shot made from two separate pictures. The photo of Monroe was taken in 1950 by Ed Clark and the Taylor photo was taken in 1948 by Mark Kauffman.
3. I’m blue da ba dee da ba daa!
A photo of “The Fairy Pools, Isle of Skye, Scotland” hit the internet back in October 2013, and of course, brought a lot of tourists in, only to surprise them with the “usual” gorgeous nature instead of this blue marvel. The original photo was actually of the Shotover River in New Zealand, so the tourists were quite disappointed. And what do people do when they’re sad? They drink! And since this is Scotland… well, you can fill in the blanks.
4. Giant Australian NOPE!
I don’t understand how anyone would think this is a real picture, but then again, there are probably billions of people out there waiting to be tricked. Paul Santa Maria took a picture of a large wolf spider outside of his home and blew it up to monstrous proportions in Photoshop.
5. A perfect house
Known as the ‘Castle House Island’ in Dublin, this is actually just a photo of Thailand’s “James Bond Island” Photoshopped with a portion of Lichtenstein Castle in Germany.
6. The giant squid!
This is one of those pics that caught me off-guard, and not because it was a great Photoshot job, but because these things really exist deep in the ocean. It was fascinating, until I found out it was a fake all along. Originally this was a photo of people gathering around a humpback whale that had washed ashore.
7. Moonmelon
Did you know that this unique Japanese fruit known as the “Moonmelon” was said to switch flavors after you eat it? Impossible, right? Well, yeah, turns out it really was a fake.
8. Just an ordinary lion getting a CAT scan
Every time you saw that iconic MGM logo with a lion roaring, it was actually a sedated lion getting a CAT scan…. No, not really! Boy, you are gullible.
9. Extreme airplane selfie
Selfies are usually a really cheesy way to get some extra likes on the Instagram, but this pilot has figured a way to make his selfie epic. 10,000 ft above the ground he just cracked open the window and stuck his body out to take this shot. NOT! In reality the picture was taken on the ground, where it’s safe and humans can breathe.
10. Black lion? A blion?
Do you remember how many people reposted this picture of a rare black lion to their Facebook pages? Needless to say, the real pic wasn’t as exciting as that of a blion (yeah, I’m still calling it that), but at least lions are awesome!
11. George Bush’s upside down book
Admit it, you also thought this was a real photo, didn’t you? I mean, a picture of the not-so-bright President George Bush reading a book upside down? Who could say no to that!
12. How to fool National Geographic
It’s that legendary photo of a shark jumping out of the water, and, believe it or not, it’s a complete fake! The image was created by a graphic artist “Alexyz3d” using CG. Also, that bit about it being in National Geographic was also a lie. Welcome to the real world, son.
13. Running from a hungry bear.
The crew is clearly running from something. And if it’s not a bear, what else could’ve scared them this much? My guess is – aliens. Go ahead and prove me wrong.
14. Shark attacks a helicopter!
It’s not every day you can see a British Navy diver be attacked by a shark jumping out of water. This “Photo of the Year” ended up being a composite image, sadly.
15. Frozen spider web?
A photo claiming to be of a frozen spider web turned out to really be just a badly cropped image of an ice sculpture by Michael Kaloki and Timo Koivisto. Man, you can’t trust anyone these days!
