I was just sent a link to these pics of recent volcano cloud and this particular image looks very Photoshopped... I might be wrong... you decide!!



Heres the link to the page... some awesome images here.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/04/more_from_eyjafjallajokull.html

Hmm deffo chopped.

I'd say CHOPPED! The lighting photos that is.
Folks have been taking photos and video of volcanic activity for a hundred years and I never seen anything like this.

Could be wrong though??..

that's a lightning brushes where you download at
http://qbrushes.net/

but i could be wrong too!

I was thinking it was chopped simply because that lightening looks a lot like PS brush with an outer glow on it... but, as you say; Could be wrong!

It could be real, but I think only if it is an HDR image. I'm not the most familiar with HDR, but my brother-in-law has had fun with them in his photography. Basically you take photos from the same spot with different exposures, and use the HDR function in Photoshop to make a landscape look gorgeous, colors pop, sky's and land look amazing. I think it takes all the images and and inputs the best exposures for each object into one flat image.

But this lightning looks too sharp. I wouldn't know how they captured it, but I do think Photoshop was used to enhance this image, this isn't a single photo/shot in my opinion. You wouldn't get everything exposed this well if it were a single shot.

i did this without looking at your picture
is it like this??



a bit thicker but.....

No chop

No, your chop looks much realer than the 'photo'! Yours is branched, like a root, the 'photo' is wiggled, like a worm.

Scroll down: http://www.keesfloor.nl/artikelen/zenit/vulk_mesocycl/index.htm

It's for real, I think.

Real. No chop. Maybe for some pictures... saturation & contrast added.

It's more easy than it looks, put the camera on a tripod and set it to B mode (exposition time set by pushing the shot button to start and pushing again to stop),set the shutter close to have depth and a very dark exposition then shot...wait the lightning...push again. the lightning's strong light will expose everything around it. it's impossible to shot more than one pic to the same lightning

these are real there's also a video showing lightning,everything is made up of electric charges so....

WOW! Striking image!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL-f92xHhTQ

Its real, and most the beautiful/scary thing I've ever seen.

also look up St. Elmo's fire, and no not the movie!
I also heard that there were balls of lightning when Mt. St. Helens erupted