Wake up. Wash up. Look in the mirror. Get ready to pass out.

Now, it can’t be all that bad, can it? Morning is tough on all of us. We feel your pain. But soldier on we must. Kids are waiting to be fed, papers are waiting to be read, traffic jams are waiting to get stuck in. This is no time to slack off.

The problem, as we see it, is one of self image. If you look shleppy, you think shleppy, and act accordingly. What you need is a self-image boost. What if, instead of frizzy hair in the mirror, you woke up to an image of yourself – Hollywood perfect? The to-die-for outfit, the fabulous shoes, the swag, swank and bling – that’s the real you!

My advice, then, is to break all your mirrors, which are just downers, and download a free program called Poster Forge (http://www.ronyasoft.com/products/poster-forge/index.html), print yourself out some motivational movie posters, hang them on the wall – and experience an immediate attitude adjustment!

Poster Forge is simple to use: You insert your own photo into one of three templates provided – Movie, post office-style Wanted, or office-style Motivational. The basic layout of the poster remains the same no matter what changes you make; the font on the wanted poster looks like what you’d expect to see on a Wild West wanted poster, and the movie poster has a hi-tech looking color fade and modern text typeface.

While you can’t change the typeface, you can change the text – the name of your “movie,” the background and text colors, and of course, the photo itself, the centerpiece of the poster. It’s a great program for not just early morning oversleeping shleppers, but for teachers (print out motivational/reward posters for kids), parents (ditto), rainy day activities for kids (you won’t see them for hours – I promise!), and practical jokers (imagine seeing yourself on a wanted poster!).

And while posters are fun on screen, they’re more fun on paper. Possibly the most helpful aspect of Poster Forge is its ability to print large size posters on separate sheets of 8.5 x11 or A4 paper, automatically calculating and calibrating the division of each segment on a separate piece of paper, with enough overlap to ensure that the poster gets glued together properly. As anyone who has ever tried to print out poster sized blowups of standard size artwork pages knows, the operation is highly risky, either working perfectly on the first shot or yielding tons of useless paper because something was “off.” With Poster Forge, the results are perfect each time.

The one minus about Poster Forge is its limitations – there are only three poster styles to choose from. For more poster fun, though, the company offers ProPoster ($19.99), which works the same way as Poster Forge but has much more flexibility. With Poster Forge, the real you emerges – and you’re beautiful!