Sir this is Lemmy & I’m afraid I have to downvote you for defending AI which is always bad. /s

there is a lighting curve and vignette filter over this. it’s not just stock camera photo processing, which yes, pretty much all phone cameras do now.

the original image probably “popped” less. it’s not a horribly edited photo either, but it is heavily manipulated which is why people thought it was AI.

because its not just a quick photo taken by a phone as implied by the original poster. the image is heavily edited like an AI image may appear to be.