min·i·a·ture
n.
1.
a. A copy or model that represents or reproduces something in a greatly reduced size.
b. Something small of its class.
2.
a. A small painting executed with great detail, often on a surface such as ivory or vellum.
b. A small portrait, picture, or decorative letter on an illuminated manuscript.
c. The art of painting miniatures.

Tilt-Shift miniature faking is a process in which a photograph of a life-size location or object is manipulated so that it looks like a photograph of a miniature scale model. By distorting the focus of the photo, the artist simulates the shallow depth of field normally encountered with macro lenses making the scene seem much smaller than it actually is. Many miniature faked photographs are taken from a high angle to further simulate the effect of looking down on a miniature. Objects oriented horizontally, such as the train in the first example, make better subjects for tilt-shift miniature faking than vertically oriented objects such as in the second example, in which one can see how the bottom of the trees are in focus but the top of the trees are out of focus, despite being the same distance from the lens.



The effect can be achieved optically by using a tilt-shift lens. It can also be achieved using an image editor like Photoshop by blurring the top and bottom of the photograph so that only the subject is in focus, for example by using a gradient map focused in a middle stripe, and lens blur filter having applied. The freedom of having an editable gradient map allows for a greater degree of control over which areas in the foreground and background are going to be blurred. It is perhaps improper to refer to these more complex techniques as "tilt-shifting". These more detailed digital "fakes" do not simulate the effect of tilt-shifting per se, rather it merely simulates the effect of photographing a miniature, and to a much more realistic effect than a tilt-shifted photograph.