Tilt-Shift miniature faking is a creative technique whereby a photograph of a life-size location or object is manipulated to give an optical illusion of a photograph of a miniature scale model.
Altering the focus of the photography in Photoshop (or similar program) simulates the shallow depth of field normally encountered with macro lenses making the scene seem much smaller than it actually is.
In addition to focus manipulation, the tilt-shift photography effect is improved by increasing color saturation and contrast, to simulate the bright paint often found on scale models.
Most faked tilt-shift photographs are taken from a high angle to further simulate the effect of looking down on a miniature. The technique is particularly effective on buildings, cars, trains and people.
Tilt-Shift photography is all about changing the angle of the camera to give a different perspective and to make something look bigger or smaller. Like when you play poker and your chips are stacked and all lined up, from on top they don’t look like much but if you look from the bottom they could look huge.
See sample below:
Tilt-Shift Photography masterpieces are a beauty to behold, just like a Texas Holdem player looking down to see that they’ve been dealt a royal flush.
Here are some related tutorials from the web.