A crew of artists found a new way to ‘clean up’ graffiti in a public place by simply erasing a car and dumpster from a street in Russia using the old familiar Photoshop transparency pattern. Called CTRL+X, the piece was created as part of the Stenograffia street art festival, and carrying it out was simple – if a little bit time consuming. Before they got started, the surfaces were covered in tags in all shades of the rainbow, and they had to paint everything a matte light gray as a base.

After dark, they set up a projector so they could trace the Photoshop checkerboard pattern from the perspective point from which the scene would be viewed by the public, so it’s angled just right. They used pencil to mark the lines, and then taped off the squares that needed to be painted a darker gray.

The end result is a pretty fun optical illusion that’s probably only effective for people who are used to working in Photoshop. Check out lots of behind-the-scenes photos on the Stenograffia Facebook page.

A sports car parked in a residential alley, train emerging from a tunnel and helicopter landing next to the Colosseum are all believable sights in Italy’s capital … except in this case they are constructed from LEGO.

Italian photographer Domenico Franco imagines these block-built vehicles at human scale in his series LEGO Outside LEGOLAND, masterfully faked scenes of photo-realistic quality.

In his series, normal conveyances are swapped with LEGO creations that stand out as simplified block forms against the rich historical fabric of Rome.

While some are clearly toys writ large, others are more convincing: a passing glance at a tractor trailer doing road work might not immediately belie its fictional origins.

Landmark buildings and aged cobblestone roads come alive thanks to the contrast created by intervening toys. Ordinary gray-blue weather and aged architecture seems even more real than in a normal photograph.

“The aim is to transform ordinary contexts in extraordinary ones,” says the artist, “thus compelling the toys to get out of the idyllic and politically correct landscapes belonging to their perfect and idealistic cities, with the result of instilling in them those vices, virtues and desires typical of human beings.”

When you see the Burj Khalifa photoshopped into New York City’s skyline, glimpse a B-2 bomber on an NFL football field or spot the largest scorpion that ever lived creeping up next to a cat, you get a better sense of just how big these things are. Kevin Wisbeth, who created the YouTube series ‘A Quick Perspective,’ offers up a bunch of digitally altered images mashing together various images and objects to give people a real sense of scale.

“These are all concept images that don’t seem appealing enough for a video,” he says – but the results are stunning nonetheless, starting with the 1,729-foot Willis Tower (the second-tallest building in the United States) placed inside the Mir Mine, one of the deepest mines in the world (pictured top.) The second depicts the 882-foot-long Titanic atop the deck of the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan, which measures 1,092 feet in length.

The Pulmonoscorpius kirktonensis, or Breathing Scorpion, was a prehistoric arachnid that grew up to 24 inches long, or about the size of a contemporary house cat.

The M-1 Rocket motor, designed in the ‘50s, was never actually built – but if it had been, it would have boasted a diameter large enough to fully cover a Smart Car with two feet left over on either side.

The Dionysus asteroid, which is part of the Apollo asteroid belt and contains resources estimated to be worth $2.6 trillion dollars, “wouldn’t even surpass the bridge span” of the Golden Gate Bridge if placed above it.

The Burj Khalifa pokes into the sky above Manhattan, easily surpassing One World Trade Center by almost 1,000 feet and the Empire State Building by 1,300 feet. It’s currently the tallest structure in the world at 2,722 feet tall.

“Although the Death Star doesn’t exist in reality, it’s truly the biggest and most bad-ass machine ever conceived. The Death Star’s estimated width is around 99 miles across, or around 1/4 the length of Florida.”

See more of the images on Imgur.

The very existence of Photoshop has made it easy to immediately dismiss impossible-looking images as digitally altered, but some bizarre scenes are more real than they appear. Anything from a particularly alien-like landscape to a rare cloud formation can provoke cries of ‘Photoshop!,’ but it’s particularly impressive when these illusions are created through art, with the help of mirrors, acrobatic models, trick perspective and serendipitous timing.

Coincidence Project by Denis Cherim

The almost too-coincidental-to-be-real photography of Denis Cherim relies on the patience to wait for exactly the right moment, when various elements of a scene come together in just the right way. His series ‘The Coincidence Project’ sees ordinary scenes from new perspectives, moving to particular vantage points to encourage serendipitous alignments.

Gravity-Defying Performances by Li Wei

How can there possibly not be any photo manipulation going on in images where people are floating in mid-air? Li Wei’s particular blend of photography and performance art uses the strength of his subjects – including no small amount of acrobatics – along with invisible props and mirrors to create scenes that aren’t exactly as they appear.

Surreal Scenes by Sandy Skoglund

Fish fly through blue-toned bedrooms, foxes take over dining rooms and people hang from ceilings in dreamlike scenes by artist Sandy Skoglund, who spends months building each elaborate set. Favoring vivid color schemes, Skoglund mixes her hand-made sets and inanimate figures with live human models and takes photographs of the resulting contrasts.

Toy Dinosaur Travel Shots by Jorge Saenz

What look like screenshots from an old stop-motion animation dinosaur movie are actually just toy dinosaurs artfully placed within landscapes by photographer Jorge Saenz. His ‘#dinodinaseries’ project makes the figurines appear larger than life, sometimes looking surprisingly real in their incongruous modern-day settings.

Mirror Landscapes by Guillame Amat

Mirrors seem to offer portals into a slightly different reality in Guillaume Amat’s ‘Open Fields’ project, which carefully places a reflective stand in various landscapes. The reflections almost blend into the scene, but not quite – leading to images that are inaccurate renderings of the setting, but in such a subtle way it can take a moment to realize what’s wrong with the picture.

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You Wont Believe Its Not Photoshop 36 Fake Looking Photos

The plot of the movie ‘Inception’ is almost an afterthought compared to the impact that its distorted, dreamlike manipulations of architecture and landscapes has had on a generation of artists and designers. Inspired by the concept of warping a scene in ways that completely defy the laws of physics yet still remain photo-realistic, the following artists have created new worlds that are strange and yet also familiar.

Erik Johansson

Nothing is quite as it seems in the images produced by Swedish-born, Berlin-based photo artist Erik Johansson. Grassy land cascades over the edge of the world like a waterfall, the surface of the earth is unzipped, cars appear to hover upside-down on the road. It’s difficult to tell reality from illusion, and that’s the point; the scenes he creates are as playful as they are impossible. Setting up and taking the photos takes about as long as manipulating them in Photoshop, and a single image can consist of over 100 layers.

Cubic Landscape by Petey Ulatan

Flattened views of landscapes are flipped and folded to create cubes, their edges bent at 90 degree angles, eliminating the very gradual and subtle curves that make up the surface of the Earth. Artist Petey Ulatan takes inspiration from the films ‘Inception’ and ‘Interstellar’ to reshape the world, almost as if a giant hand were making it into origami.

Turkey Turned Upside-Down by Aydin Büyüktas

Many of the same manipulations are happening in the work of Aydin Büyüktas, except focused on the Turkish city of Istanbul, with all of its landmarks and neighborhoods warped in ways that defy the laws of physics. The artist uses drone photography and 3D software to create these composite images. “We live in places that most of the times don’t draw our attention, places that transform our memories, places that the artist gives another dimension; where the perceptions that generally crosses our minds will be demolished and new ones will arise. These works aims to leave the viewer alone with a surprising visuality ironic as well, multidimensional romantic point of view.”

‘Inception Park’ in Buenos Aires by Black Sheep Films

What if you could ride a trackless rollercoaster around the city, almost as if you’re on the back of some kind of mystical flying creature? Black Sheep Films gives us an idea of what this would feel like with ‘Inception Park,’ a strange little video set in Buenos Aires. It’s fun to watch the snake of rollercoaster cars meander through the space, interacting with architecture.

Twisted Architecture by Nicholas Kennedy Sitton

“These photos are a result of how intriguing the concept of distortion translates to architecture,” says artist Nicholas Kennedy Sitton of his ‘Twisted Architecture’ series. “It creates a sense of falling into itself, like capturing a moment of demolition. I can destroy titanous steel structures with the click of a mouse and create new twisted versions of reality. I was also inspired by San Francisco. I had just moved there and being in a new city was disorienting and exciting and I wanted to capture how my whole world had changed.”

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Warped Worlds 30 Surreal Digitally Manipulated Landscapes