The image I chose for my fake picture was one of my own from a swimming party that I recently attended. I manipulated this picture of me alone in the water and added a picture of Michael Phelps right next to me as if we were racing. The image was manipulated out of fun and it was an assignment in my Computer Skills class. I do not feel like the manipulation was harmful because anybody that views the photoshopped image will more than likely take it as a joke.
This was my first time using Photoshop to manipulate an image and it's almost scary how much control I had in changing it to exactly what I wanted it to look like. It's scary because I know that there are people out there that do this type of thing for other ways than my motive for it; most times their motives are malicious. One thing that makes me feel better is that there are individuals out there taking on the responsibility of detecting fraudulent images and exposing them. The author of an article I recently read had this to say to those malicious Photoshop users, "No matter how good you are at it, there's always going to be some trace left behind." I hope those evil users take this message to heart.
