FAQ page for the alt.binaries.pictures.nude.celebrities.fake newsgroup

alt.binaries.pictures.nude.celebrities.fake
alt.binaries.celebrities.fake.moderated
alt.binaries.pictures.nude.celebrities.fake.repost
FAQ
Digital Celebrity Fakes

Frequently Asked Questions List - Part B - Fakir Tips & Resources

alt.binaries.pictures.nude.celebrities.fake :created September 11, 1996 by Lux Lucre
alt.binaries.celebrities.fake.moderated :created July 31, 1997 by Lux Lucre
alt.binaries.pictures.nude.celebrities.fake.repost:created January, 1999 by Nightwalker

The above links will take you to your local newsfeed, if you have it.

An Archive of all the fakes posted to the newsgroups is maintained at The Lair of Lux Lucre along with many other resources and fun places for fake fans and artists. (Adult Check or WebCredits are needed for some of the areas, but many are free)

FAQ:First Version: February 21, 1997
FAQ:Latest update - Part A - The Newsgroups: March 10, 2001
FAQ:Latest update - Part B - Fakir Tips & Resources : March 10, 2001.

FAQ Maintainer: Lux Lucre
FAQ-B Contributors: Badnewsbearz, Guntcher, Pewter Pirate, VIVI6, Ranlinadan, Mr Freeze, Frodo, Lagit.

Index - Clicking on the section titles will jump you to that section.

What's New In This Update?

- Replaced a link for Photoshop Tips

B-I. So you want to be a Fakir?

    We all love seeing the heads of some of our favorite stars and other prominant people placed on top of a nude model. The sheer god-like power of exposing them to the world for our own fantasies is a healthy and, thanks to the easy availability of advanced image manipulation programs, it is relatively easy to exercise these fantasies and it is not only healthy, but vastly entertaining!

    You are about to take up one of the most rapidly growing hobbies on the internet. Many fake artists find that making fakes are as addictive as viewing them. Only one overall rule applies: Have Fun!

    Be warned, though! No longer will you be able to pass any magazine rack without thinking to yourself, hmmm great headshot, where the h*ll can I get a scanner?

    No longer will you be able to watch your favorite female celebrities on TV or in the movies without thinking, MY GOD, I've got a baseshot that's just perfect for her! Oh sh*t, where the h*ll am I going to find the headshot? Or vice versa. Or even worse, where the bloody h*ll can I find the right HS and BS? I'VE GOT TO FAKE HER!!!!! AAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGG!!!!!!!!!!

    I know you're probably thinking , that'll never happen to me, it's just a hobby. Ha ha, just wait, you'll see. As far as I know there's no cure. Your only hope lies in your continued access to a computer with the software and internet access needed to secure HS and BS as well as this newsgroup which is one of the only places where you can find similarly addicted people who are willing to help you improve your skills and view your work.

   Welcome to the Twilight Zone.

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B-II Getting Started

Celebrity fakes are created by taking two or more separate graphic elements and combining them into one graphic picture. The tool you will need most to accomplish this task is a Graphics Program, with various optional filter plug-ins. The elements you will be bringing together typically include a Head Shot of a well-known person and an erotic Body Shot at the minimum, but can also include additional things like Fonts, Backgrounds and Props.

B-IIa Graphics Programs

   The main component in your fake toolbox will be an image manipulation program, more commonly called a Graphics Program. There are many graphics programs, but here is a brief comparison of 3 of the more popular of them:

        Photoshop (www.adobe.com):
                Available for: Windows, Mac
                Pros: The industry standard, Powerful.
                Cons: Expensive, Difficult to master

                This is the standard of the graphic art industry with many powerful features. And a powerful price too! Still it is the king of graphics professionals and if you can get it, you will be hard pressed to find another as full featured as APS.

        Paint Shop Pro (www.jasc.com):
                Available for: Windows
                Pros: Inexpensive, Easy to learn, Powerful, Uses most Photoshop filters.
                Cons: Not as full featured as Photoshop, although version 6 is getting a lot closer.

                My personal favorite at present, PSP is the best balance between ease of use and power/flexability. The newest verson also allows the use of Vector Layers, which makes for greater precision when using text and simple shapes and PSP comes with Animation Shop for making animated graphics. It costs about 1/6th of the price of Photoshop and you can download a fully-functional shareware version from their site to try for 30 days. If you are a Windows user and don't already have access to Photoshop, I happily recommend this program as your first.

        Gnu Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) (www.gimp.org)
                Available for: Linux and has some un-official ports to Windows, Mac and BeOS.
                Pros: Free!, Powerful, Fast, Uses many Photoshop filters
                Cons: Unusual interface may take some getting used to.

                GIMP is a freely distributed piece of software suitable for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It is an extremely capable piece of software with many features. It can be used as a simple paint program, a expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, a image format converter, etc. GIMP is extremely expandedable and extensible. It is designed to be augmented with plugins and extensions to do just about anything. The advanced scripting interface allows everything from the simplest task to the most complex image manipulation procedures to be easily scripted.

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B-IIa Learning your Program Basics.

    It is beyond the scope of of this FAQ to teach you how to start using your graphics program once you have chosen one, The documentation and your program's help files are the best source of learning your program's basics, but here are some links to some fine tutorials available on the Net for beginner and advanced users of all programs. Keep in mind that what can be done in one program can often be done in another almost as easily with a little adaptation on your part:

                PC Resources for Photoshop

                Paintshop Pro Tutorials

                GIMP Tutorials

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B-III. Learning to Fake

An online school that teaches the art of faking is now up and is expanding, with several dozen lessons already. It is called Fake University and can be found at:

The Fake University (www.fake-university.com)
Look for a full course in faking there sometime in the not-too-distant future.

B-IIIa Some Valuable Tips

        Here are a few technical tips and words of wisdom that should help you on your way concerning the artform that is faking, contributed by various fakirs :

        Seek Advice & Assistance
         The faking community is a good size and many artists would be only too pleased to help you learn the craft. Seek out assistance from an artist or artists in the newsgroups whose work you admire. One of the best ways to accomplish this to contact them by using the ICQ contact software (www.icq.com) . Dozens of fakirs are available for chatting, evaluating your work and sharing advice using this method.

        Start With Quality Elements
         It may be possible that a very experienced artist can take a very badly damaged bodyshot or a video captured headshot make a good fake from them, but very few new fakirs have the knowledge to do that. 50% of what makes a quality image begins with the artist using quality scanned elements to start with.

         Keep the following in mind when selecting componants for your fake:

High Resolution: 24 bit color, 200 dpi or higher is best to work with. Video captures are too grainy, unless they are professional frame grabs from high resolution professional video tapes. Both of these items are very expensive and usually only professional services have these.
Large Size: A small headshot loses a lot of detail it is easier to reduce size than expand it. Stretching causes pixelization.
Face Forward: Heads and bodies facing front are best, however profiles can be workable.
Hair: Try not to use shots that the hair is cropped out or you will then have to work a hair style as well.
Stars: Avoid choosing stars that are known to have done a lot of nude layouts, the illusion is gone. Those who have not, or have done only a rare nude are the best. The best guide is your imagination, maybe that cute co-star such as Dawn Wells of Gilligan's island (remember Ginger got all the sexy roles.)

        File Formats
         A very frequent first time problem is that fakes come out badly "pixelated", that is there is a blockiness to them. This occurs during construction and the novice faker saves it as a .JPG after each change. JPEG is what's called a "lossy" file format, It takes shortcuts in evening-out the colors in order to compress the graphics file into a small file. The disadvantage is that if you save it, again and again, it compounds the "lossiness" and gives you the blocky effect.

         I recommend that you work on your fake in a "loss-less" format, like .PSD or .PSP and only save a copy as a .JPG once you've completed it. This will make it a much sharper image.

        Lab Work
         Learn the tools and the program you're working with, and don't be afraid to experiment and find the hidden capabilities your software has. The more fakes you make, the more adventurous you should get with your software and the more you will want to know what it's possibilities are.

        Identity
         It's a good idea to find a clever artist name for yourself and, if you wish to make sure your work is credited to you, place it somewere on the fake. If you are more ambitious you may even want to design and add a distinctive logo. This will make it more difficult for someone else to take it and pass it off as their own.

        Sleep on It
         Never post your fake until after you have slept on it. It looks different in the morning, always will.

        Breaking Through
         The one thing many artists have found out is that when you do fakes for a while, you will come to a point where you can't seem to do anything right. Your old fakes look better than what you're doing now. This is a sign that you are getting ready to break into a new level of ability. If you keep working at it, you will break thru and be all the better for it. You will hit this many times, expect it and accept the challenge.

        Head Shots
         Always size the head shot down to the body shot. When you size up, you are making noise apparent. Never flip a head shot, flip the body shot. NOISE IS YOUR FRIEND! All pictures have some noise in them. If you remove all noise, it makes your image look overworked. A little noise makes your fake look real.

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B-IV Fakir Resources

Ah yes, now we get to the good stuff! In this section, the largest part of FAQ-B, we will show you where to go to lay your hands on the raw materials that you will use to create your fake artwork.

Every effort is made to make sure these links are current, but if you find one that has gone dead, please let me know.

B-IVa Celebrity Head Shots

Without a celebrity face, it's hard to make a celebrity fake, so here are some places to find a variety of different celebrity pictures.

One resource that is absolutely essential when it comes to celebrity information is The Internet Movie Database. You can check the ages of young film & tv celebrities and there are often links to official sites, with pictures, for others. An important site to bookmark.

us.imdb.com
B-IVa-1 Celebrity Head Shots - Search Engines.

So far I am only aware of one search engine that searches just for pictures, but it's a pretty good one, especially for finding those hard-to-find actresses:

www.ditto.com

It also has a "Ditto Detective" that will look more deeply for a match and get back to you in 24 hours.

B-IVa-2 Celebrity Head Shots - Newsgroups.

Usenet groups can often be a very good source of new celebrity pictures. There are many groups specifically devoted to one celebrity, TV show or movie, but here are a couple that cover general celebrity newsgroups.

alt.binaries.pictures.celebrities
alt.binaries.pictures.celebrities.portraits.large
alt.binaries.tv.*

B-IVa-3 Celebrity Head Shots - Web Sites.

We have established The Head Shoppe as part of Fake University. Badnewzbearz built it and is carrying on the good work of maintaining and expanding it.

http://lairofluxlucre.com/fake-u/head_shop/index.html

And of course the TV Networks:

ABC	www.abc.com
CBS	www.cbs.com
NBC	www.nbc.com
FOX	www.foxworld.com
UPN	www.upn.com
WB	www.tv.warnerbros.com
Universal	www.universalstudios.com/tv/

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B-IVa-4 Celebrity Head Shots - Message Boards.

Message boards on the web can be a great place to request and find specific celebrities without spam.

CelebScans Mesage Board

www.celebscans.com/msgboard.html

B-IV Naked Body Shots.
Of course a celebrity headshot is nothing without a sexy body to go with it and fortunatly they are much easier to find than a good headshot. You can hardly type a URL on the Net without finding naked babes somewhere, but of course we want you to be able to fake for cheap, so we don't want you to have to spend money to get them.

There are photos, of course: ladies of every size and shape, decked out in a variety of interesting costumes, in exotic locations and positions. But don't forget, with a little extra adjustment erotic paintings, cartoons and other art work can also serve well as the basis of a celebrity fake.

What you want to look for in a bodyshot is generally large dimensions, sharp focus, and a good head position. There is more specific advice here

B-IVb-1 Naked Body Shots - Search Engines.
None I know of.

B-IVb-2 Naked Body Shots - Newsgroups.
The number of Usenet groups that carry erotic pictures is enormous.
The number of naked web sites is even more enormous, so finding them at websites should be a snap! Finding GOOD ones however is another matter. So here are a few that stand out with a minimum of banners and other crap.

B-IVb-4 Naked Body Shots - Message Boards.
None I know of yet.

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B-IVc-1 Backgrounds & Stuff.

Apart from Head Shots and Body Shots other elements go toward the construction of an interesting fake. Filters, backgrounds, fonts and props all help to enhance the artistry of a fake. Here are some places to find neat enhancements for your work.

B-IVc-1 Backgrounds & Stuff - Programs and Add-ons.

Terragen is a very cool free program that allows you to create outdoor scenes with mountains, hills, water and different sun and sky effects. *Highly Recommended* www.planetside.co.uk

B-IVc-2 Backgrounds & Stuff - Newsgroups.
alt.binaries.fonts
B-IVc-3 Backgrounds & Stuff - Web Sites.

ReallyBig.com is a THE place, a Grand Central Station for finding fonts, textures, backgrounds, and many other graphic elements. Be sure to check it out!

B-IVc-4 Backgrounds & Stuff - Message Boards.
None I know of yet.

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Glossary

BASE PHOTO - The photo that includes the BODY SHOT of the indended fake and may also include a background.
BODY SHOT (BS) - The photo of a body intended to be used in a fake.
CUT & PASTE FAKE, A - A fake composed of a celebrity HEAD SHOT and a, usually nude, BODY SHOT.
FAKIR - The term for one who makes fakes (from the Indian word for a miracle maker)
HEAD SHOT (HS)- The head photo of a celebrity used in a CUT & PASTE FAKE.
MISFAKE - A celebrity look-alike mis-identified as a celebrity fake.
PLATE - A photo with no primary bodyshots. A basic background shot.
RETOUCH FAKE, A - A BASE PHOTO of a celebrity whose BODY SHOT has been digitally painted over to remove some or all clothing.

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The Digital Fakir's Declaration

        Every movement needs a founding document, and this is ours:

The Digital Fakir's Declaration
        We, the Fakirs of the earth, being dissatisfied with reality as it exists and disappointed with celebrity culture's pre-packaged star images, do declare our intention, in the spirit of fun, to alter, enhance, and otherwise screw around digitally with the images of the famous in order to create our own fantasies.

        We do this freely, without malice towards our subjects or deception toward our intended audience, but simply for our own amusement and for reasons that are none of your damn business.

        Fakir's of the world: Retouch! Back to Index

This FAQ, as a compilation of information, is ©1997-2001 by Lux Lucre.
It may be distributed freely, but not sold. Your comments, suggestions and corrections are appreciated.