I have seen something similar but not quite as striking as this. The incident I recall was here in Mt Beauty in Winter and it was apparently microscopic ice crystals in the air.
Many things are presented that are a composite or a trickery but once let free in the world they are real...this is unfortunate because truth suffers ... many folk use this approach to show us realities to which we must endorse their responnce on our behalf ..our government respondes upon realities that are perceptions derived for thier idealogy rather than truth... and so do not underestimate "real" even if it is constructed from many parts each of which is "real" but the composite is faulse..
Clouds can be tricky things by themselves let alone having hunans playing with them.....
Hmmm I would be tempted to say it is real, if only because of any lack of evidence to say its false. We know this sort of thing can happen. I've seen it myself, just not so perfectly. Clouds look fine themselves, so I would say they are real. Look at the right hand most cloud, middle one. Its below the other cloud, yet if you zoom in no colour has been placed on it.. that would take patience to do that. Hmm... more searching turned up this: http://www.snopes.com/photos/natural/firerainbow.asp Snopes votes for it. I've seen it myself, not as well as this. Meh. I'm sold
It definitely looks like the saturation and histogram have been adjusted. This doesn't make the photo a fake, just that what was photographed has been optimized.
How often do you take a picture that doesn't do the subject justice? All the photographer has done is give the scene the justice it deserves and it is probably closer to what he/she saw than it was unprocessed.
Don't forget; when you take a photo it has to be developed, either in a dark room (film camera), by the software in your camera or by the photographer on a computer. It is not a matter of if it was processed but how.
It could be real.
I saw something very similar over 10 years ago while driving between Melbourne and Geelong. It was a very calm day in April, late afternoon.
The image I saw, which was similar to this one, I'm pretty sure was caused by the sun reflecting off a very dead flat and calm lake Corangamite, and the light reflecting back up on an almost solid layer of cirrus cloud that was west of Geeliong. Looked damn spectacular, and I had never seen it before, or since.
Hmmm I would be tempted to say it is real, if only because of any lack of evidence to say its false. We know this sort of thing can happen. I've seen it myself, just not so perfectly. Clouds look fine themselves, so I would say they are real. Look at the right hand most cloud, middle one. Its below the other cloud, yet if you zoom in no colour has been placed on it.. that would take patience to do that. Hmm... more searching turned up this: http://www.snopes.com/photos/natural/firerainbow.asp Snopes votes for it. I've seen it myself, not as well as this. Meh. I'm sold
Interesting, and thanks for finding this. The description given also fits many of the conditions of what I saw down near Geelong. May have possibly been all hexagonal ice crystals above 20k, and had nothing to do with Lake Corangamite. But it was very bright all the same.
I'm voting that the image in question is a real one, with no jiggery-pokery done to it.
I think, that it could be real, maybe there was some touching up of the image, but why wouldn't it be possible, it may just be once in a million situation where the Sun,Clouds, and Water Crystal are all in the right place at the right time to bring on this event, I vote yes.
My two-bob's worth: as surreal as it may appear to some, these sort of "atmospherics" aren't all that unusual in reality; they're often fleeting occurrences that rarely get "snapped."
That's not to say that this particular one is kosha; but I've witnessed a few similar phenomena, particularly at a place called Emu Downs - but they themselves didn't hold a candle to an Aurora Australis up there almost 30 years ago: well before photoshop, but from one perspective you could well have thought an image of that particular event was a garish psychedelic photoshop rendering: a bit like some of the McNaught shots in another thread here.
As for the lens reflection EziStyles pointed out - does this suggest the shot was taken/contrived through some sort of window - maybe an aircraft? Quite liked the vapour trail from a plane in the background. Cheers.....
Thank you all for your input.
The verdict is YES, it is for real.
Though it may have been enhanced to bring out more detail, it isn't an artificial construct.
its been clipped it on the left hand side but adding the colours might be another thing.
are real!
