And because they hate environmentalists. I blame Clinton!

And its not a frickin ever green forest. look at the trees in the background..

I blame all of you.

Look at the trees in the foreground. I remeber seeing bark like that in a forest... In Oregen...

[QUOTE=Raoul Duke]You guys are hopeless. none of your points are valid. You could say the exact same thing about many other photos.

I mean, "the unnatural way the native is walkin toward the camera"?? give me a break. The fact that they look like pines? Its fricikin stumps...you guys dont kno enough about this to be saying anything, and why would you assume its a photoshop? I'm almost certain its real...it came from reuters.

The only reason you aall think its a photoshop is because jedikirby planted that idea in your head.[/QUOTE]

He's right for once. None of us are dendrologist, none of us look at natives a lot, and just because all the trees are black ashes and they arn't doesn't mean it's photoshoped...it could be that they are NOT burnt?

It has a possibility of being fake. Then again, it doesn't. I'm just saying you can't declare something fake unless you know it through and through...same goes with it being true. You just have to form your own opinion based on what you know, but don't be an expert and declare it something it may not be.

I do, however, find the first sentence of the article halarious.



It's burnt. It's dead. Dendrologist even have a hard time just looking at a tree to figure out what it is by a picture.

WOW THATS CONCLUSIVE EVIDENCE

And anovis, im always right.

I think it's PS'd, you might not, it's ok this isn't going to make a difference. I'm done argueing

Yay, we win.

I just hate when people make baseless assumptions and stick with them.. (KIND OF LIKE MY WHOLE "FAITH" ARGUMENT) At least Im smart enough to say it could be either. But whatever.

Not in rain forests. 90% of a rainforest's nutrients are contained within the vegetation. Burning it down burns up those nutirents making fires very detremental to rain forests

And the only reason you think its not is because you decided from the beginning that it wasn't, and don't want to seem indecisive.

But you could be right. Who knows. Personally, it looks fake to me too. But I'm not sending them money either way, so what does it matter?

And, what would you do if you sent them money and found out it was fake?

This is not any kind of 'baseless' statement... It just looks PSed, something about the nature of the lighting or the image...

It just LOOKS that way to some of us... you can say that the reasons people posted (and they did post reasons) are just results of odd coincidence or natural effects, and they very well may be, but they resemble a photoshopped piece.

Bingo. Ding ding ding! Someone give this guy a medal, he has officially spoken for the opposing faction, and I agree with him.

Actually, I've looked at it--examined it even--maybe 20 times since it was posted. And each time I became more convinced it was real. This is coming from a guy who has yet to see a CG character in a movie that doesn't look fakerized. :p

Hmm. Before, I read this, I was honestly leaning towards saying that it was a real picture and just very badly processed, but these are good points and it definitely does look like an evergreen forest. I'm torn.

Well, it is burned to pieces. When the fire comes through all the vegetation--that makes a rainforest look like a rainforest from the ground--gets torched and it ends up looking more like an evergreen forest which has a lot less of that kind of thing.

that is correct, but you do not even know if that fire was natural or man-made.

man-made fires usualy dont follow the same patterns as natural fires.

also, if there has been a restorative natural fire recently, another one is going to be very bad as it will destroy all the young plants.

Prescribed burns over dead forests definetly are as controlled as a forest-fire can get. Sometimes a prescribed burn of 100+ acres can save half a state.

I got backed by Anovis. i win.

yes, but this picture is not rainforest. Also, if it was a forest that needed fire to rejuvinate, any burning, natural or manmade, can devistate the regroth cycle.

before you accuse me of not knowing about plants, remember that i live in australia where the native trees actualy need fire to continue their lifecycle and spread their seed.

[QUOTE=Michael MacFarlane]Hmm. Before, I read this, I was honestly leaning towards saying that it was a real picture and just very badly processed, but these are good points and it definitely does look like an evergreen forest. I'm torn.[/QUOTE]
It is not an evergreen forest. Look on the horizon. Those trees are NOT evergreen. Its pretty obvious.

And sarn, what are you talking about? Nice try trying to flip it around on me, but I said there is clearly NO valid evidence to suggest photoshopping that anyone has suggested. It may or may not be photoshopped, I only said that there is no way for us to tell and so the people who are just 100% convinced thats it photoshopped are just being irrational. And in the case where no evidence is present, I think it's best to err on the side of it being real. Kind of like burden of proof. If theres no valid evidence suggesting photoshop, why would you think it was? Most people here just seem to think it "looks" photoshopped. Like I said, probably because the saturation/contrast was upped to make the indians look brighter and the background duller, to make for a more striking picture.

or mabye, none of you have ever taken a picture in a burnt out area before.

if you have done so, or even seen one, you would realize that the blanket of ash has a very big effect on the way light reflects off objects. those natives have no ash on them so the light acts normaly on them. the fact it is a digital photo makes a difference too, the camera probably has a mode that adjusts the way the picture is taken, which gave the natives that look.

Also, remember when i posted a pic that i PSed. GBK thought that a tree was put into te image by me, and someone else thought i put in the stone bareque when all I did was clonetool grass over the datestamp and copy-brush a cardinal (a bird) into the image next to my cat.

But not all forests do. Rain forests do not need fire. Fire is bad for rain forests. Very, very bad.

Also, living in a country doesn't make you an expert on fire and it's benefits and/or harms to an ecosystem. There's a different fire regime for type of community where fire is part of the community. It's not something that can be applied like a blanket over everyhting.

I love the way people on both sides on these arguments wave around their little Scout badges of "I can pick PhotoShop".

Personally I can't pick photoshop, unless it's glaringly obvious, so I just go on whether I think the source is dodgey, and whether I think they've got any reason to photoshop the image.

actualy, i saved the pcture and fiddked with the saturation. it actualy looks normal with it turned down. so yes, technicaly you can say it has been photoshoped, but all hat was done to it was the saturation of the entire image was bumped up.

omg his manboobs are totally CG!!11

[QUOTE=Raoul Duke]It is not an evergreen forest. Look on the horizon. Those trees are NOT evergreen. Its pretty obvious.[/QUOTE]

You're right about that, though they do still look like trees you'd find in a temperate forest. On the other hand, they're so far away that it's hard to tell. Not great evidence either way.

My roommate, who's an excellent photographer and who edits his own pictures, suspects that it's a photoshop, but he hasn't seen alpha1's version with the saturation turned down yet.

Nevertheless, I'm going back to my initial reaction, that the picture is real. The kicker for me is that, when you zoom in, the ash below the foreground man's left foot looks compacted. Besides, if a photographer was caught faking a picture like that, it'd be a career-killer.

</rambling>