TRENTON, N.J. -- For a week, Bret Schundler's campaign Web site showed the fiery Republican primary candidate in a suit with a crowd of cheering supporters behind him.

The problem? They actually were rallying behind fiery Democratic candidate Howard Dean.

Schundler's image was used to digitally replace that of a smiling Dean in the picture, and the former Jersey City mayor's name was superimposed over both a "Howard Dean for America" sign and a Dean cap worn by one of his supporters at a Great Falls, Va., rally last year.

One of the Dean supporters, Laura Reznick, 21, of Voorhees, N.J., said she remembers zipping through a dense crowd so she could get in a photo with Dean, The Record of Bergen County reported in Friday's newspapers. Reznick is secretary of American University's College Democrats.

Big Fish, the Washington, D.C.-based marketing communications firm Schundler hired for his campaign, also worked on Dean's run. A junior staffer at the firm used the Dean photo from the company's photo collection, said Tom Frank, Big Fish's creative director. Frank issued a written apology to Schundler and said the candidate had no knowledge about the photo's origin.

The blunder was revealed just days before the June 7 GOP primary for New Jersey governor. Schundler is one of seven Republicans in the race.

Bill Pascoe, a Schundler spokesman, said he knew the photo _ which had been on the site for about a week _ was modified, but he did not know it was from a Dean event. The photo was pulled from the site Wednesday after a politics Web site notified the campaign it was doing a story about the mishap.

"My goal was to correct the problem and to take care of it before any one could make hay of it," Pascoe said Friday.

Dean, former governor of Vermont, ran for the Democratic presidential nomination last year and now serves as the Democratic National Committee chairman.