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The fake tilt-shift effect is a quick process that can be applied in Photoshop (or another image manipulation program) to an image to make an image look like it was taken with an expensive tilt-shift lens. This can also cause the subject of the photo to look like it is a miniature. Here is a quick rundown on how to create the effect.

The first step is to select a good candidate photo. You are going to get the best results selecting a shot with a downward angle on the subject. Cityscapes taken from a high point are a good example of this. For this exercise, I selected a photo of Seattle taken from the top of the Space Needle.

Once you have the photo opened, enter into quickmask mode and create a mask using the gradient tool. You will want to use the gradient that fades out on both sides. Draw the gradient over the area that you want to be in focus. You do not need to worry about the gradient being straight. At this point you should have something like the picture below. Once this is done, exit quickmask mode and the mask will be converted to a selection.

We now want to apply a lens blur effect to emulate the shortened depth of field of the tilt-shift lens. Under the blur category in the filters menu select "lens blur". The exact settings you use will vary depending on the photo but something like the options here will get you into the ball park. I found that having the Radius and Blade Curvature options in the 30s usually looks pretty good.

The Brightness and Threshold options are not terribly important unless the photo was taken at night and has a lot of reflected light bokeh.  I would recommend leaving noise set to 0 unless htere is a particular look that you are aiming for.

Click OK to apply the filter.

Your photo should now look like mine does above, with the subject of the photo in focus and the rest now out of focus.

We now need to make a couple of adjustments to finish giving the photo that miniature look. Add a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer and increase the contrast. Adjusting the contrast up will increase the miniature look of your photo.  Additionally, you will probably want to bump up the brightness as well to give the photo the bright lighting typical of miniatures.

Once that is done, make another adjustment layer, this time for Hue/Saturation. Bump up the saturation some to give the strengthen the colors and remove some of the detail. This will give the image the look of typical miniatures that have solid colors. Once this has been done the effect is complete. If necessary crop the photo to your liking.

My finished result using these steps: