“I Photoshopped Her Birth Certificate” – Graphic Designers Confess Their Sneakiest Edits And Some Are Actually Genius
Every graphic designer has a story about a Photoshop job that crossed a line. When designers were asked to come clean, the confessions poured in, and they’re some of the funniest and most quietly impressive things we’ve read in a long time.
It started with a birth certificate. The designer who kicked things off admitted to Photoshopping a friend’s daughter’s birth certificate. She was almost five but could pass for three, so a two-year edit got her into Disneyland on a cheaper ticket. It didn’t take long for other designers to join in with stories of their own.
The skills behind the mischief are very real. Anyone who has spent years matching typefaces, fixing kerning and getting print colors just right knows how much craft goes into making a document look official. One designer recreated an oil change receipt, then handled it with brake dust on his fingers so it would look properly used. That’s the same obsessive attention to detail clients pay for, just pointed in a different direction.
Some are petty, some are downright bold. Altered report cards, homemade parking permits, a fake job reference from a “coworker,” and one designer who has saved nearly $8,000 by printing their own parking passes for four years. We don’t condone any of it, but we’d be lying if we said we weren’t a little impressed.
Here’s the original post, followed by the best replies.
Replies:
1. Grandma’s “Suspended” License
Sent a letter from the “state” saying my grandma’s drivers license was suspended after 3 accidents. They were never going to do it.
– @Rocketyogi
❤️ 1.1K
2. The Pixel-Perfect Report Card
Back in the day before photoshop, I used MS Paint to edit a C on my report card to an A-, pixel by pixel. Caught the report in the mail before my parents saw it, scanned it in to the computer, edited, reprinted, snuck it back into the mailbox.
– @Nankuru_naisa
❤️ 1K
3. The Serial Forger
• Falsified doctor’s sick notes so friends can get time off work. They were actually sick, but the idea that a full grown adult has to bring a piece of paper from a doctor rather than be allowed to sleep off a cold is ridiculous.
• Falsified a medical report so a friend could get executive parking, rather than park in a lot 15 minutes away. Also ridiculous since spots were available, just not given to “lower level” employees forcing them to suffer unnecessarily.
• Falsified enrollment records at school so I can keep getting Amazon Prime at a student rate.
• Changed the dates on my student ID scan to continue receiving student discounts from online stores.
– @neener_neener_
❤️ 699
4. The Rescheduled Funeral
Changed the date of a funeral on the invite for someone to skip work
– @mysteriousballer
❤️ 462
5. A Glowing Reference From “Ashley”
These comments are making me realize I should have been way more resourceful in my life??
Not really design related but I used my work phone number to be my own reference once. Thanks to my coworker “Ashley” (me) for the glowing recommendation! Got the job, lol.
– @Ok-Blueberry1925
❤️ 775
6. Student Discount Forever
After graduation a friend of mine used Photoshop to change the date on his student card to keep receiving the student discount on Photoshop
– @InABowlofDorritos
❤️ 200
7. The Brake Dust Receipt
My GF was getting denied for a car warranty claim over a missing oil change receipt so I made one for her. The claim was for something completely unrelated to engine maintenance and the warranty company was trying to weasel out of a perfectly valid claim which she is still paying them good money for.
I went so far as to get wholesale pricing on the oil and filter for accuracy and then grabbed my dirty brake dust ridden rims before handling the receipt for maximum accuracy.
– @beerthenorth
❤️ 186
8. The $8,000 Parking Pass
My building charges an obscene amount for parking (250/mo), but the nearby convention center parking lot will let you park for 160/month. After the first couple of months I realized the tickets just have your license plate number and the date it expires, nothing too complicated on it. I guess a parking attendant just walks around and tickets if the date has passed but they don’t/haven’t ever bothered to verify that an actual credit card charge went through.
Anyway, I print these out for myself. It’s been almost four years now so it’s saved me almost 8,000 dollars
– @MarinaraMood
❤️ 176
9. The Original Poster’s Defense
Makes me happy to know that I’m not the only criminal here. Technically, we’re updating a design from another graphic designer, amirite?
– @Dry_Ask5164
❤️ 286
10. The One Who Said No (Mostly)
A former boss tried to get me to forge city business licenses and stuff from the IRS. I did not.
Did change the month on a paper plate for a family members truck.
– @Separate-The-Earth
❤️ 129
11. The Soda Label Cheat Sheet
I changed the nutrition facts and ingredients on a soda bottle label to help me with a math test. This is why I can confidently say “problem solver” on my resume
– @shananiganz
❤️ 410
12. The One Who Got Caught
One of the guys on my college course (30 years ago) decided to fake a driving licence with his new found photoshop skills. He promptly got expelled.
– @WinkyNurdo
❤️ 94
13. The Convenient COVID Test
faked a positive covid test for a friend so he could get out of a wedding
– @nthnyk
❤️ 208
14. The Puppy’s New Birthday
I falsified my puppy’s DOB on her adoption papers to make her old enough to fly on Delta Airlines (in the cabin of course) so I could bring her home from Belize. This was eight years ago, and she’s the most spoiled dog ever so 100% worth it.
– @mitarooo
❤️ 202
15. The $4K Trade-In Bump
I got an extra $4k on a car trade in a few years ago. I’d already negotiated for a new car online but their trade in calculator said my trade in was worth like 12k or something ridiculous. Shopped around at carvana and carmax, changed one of the reports from $15k to $19k and brought it into the dealership. When I came in I said, “I want this car, and I have mine to trade in, but carvana offered me $19k for the trade in. If you can match it I’ll get a car today.” And they did.
– @Unwaz
❤️ 69
16. The Lake Pass
Tame compared to y’all, but in the late 80s, I made a car sticker to get into a fancy neighborhood with a lake. We would drive my absolute piece of sh*t car to a dock and blow up our rafts and jump in.
– @IHeldADandelion
❤️ 131
17. Free Parking For The Whole Class
Every year at uni, I copied exactly the parking permit from a taking a photo of one in someone’s car. Our whole class had free parking for the full three years.
– @crashimploder
❤️ 117
18. The Doctor’s Note Factory
Helped make lots of doctors notes to get people out of work and school
– @nevertheprey
❤️ 45
19. The Diploma Upgrade
Photoshopped a High school diploma for someone so they can get hired.
– @petreauxzzx
❤️ 40
20. The Payslip Glow-Up
I changed my payslips so that it looked like I earned more money when I was applying to rent a house. I even recalculated the taxes and everything correctly which I suspect they didn’t check.
But I am a real boring pleb normally. I did a little side job for a buddy and he sent me stock photos he wanted me to use that he’d found on google and I secretly found them on stock sites and licensed them but it seemed too complicated to explain the difference to him.
– @[deleted]
❤️ 101
21. The Classic Fake ID
The classic, fake ID so I could get in to a gig at 17.
– @heliskinki
❤️ 54
22. Two Tickets Become Six
Not the most badass thing ever, but I graduated college right after lockdown when social distancing was still a really big thing, which led to limits on how many people students could invite to the grad ceremony. We got a total of two tickets. I simply scanned and recreated the whole thing in Illustrator, printed out copies on cardstock, and bing bang boom my two tickets transformed into six 😂
– @connorgrs
❤️ 107
Send this to the designer friend who’s one Photoshop file away from a criminal record, and tell us in the comments: what’s the most fraudulent thing you’ve ever done with Photoshop?
