Major news and photo agencies have issed a ‘kill’ notice on the recent photo of the Princess of Wales and her children. The palace officially issued the photograph to coincide with the UK’s Mother’s Day and is the first official photo since the princess underwent major abdominal surgery.

The reason for the image recall is that some evidence of image manipulation or poor photoshopping was spotted. Zooming in on Princess Charlotte’s hand, it is clear that the fabric is misaligned.

According to CNN, there are at least two areas of inconsistency in the photograph. The Associated Press stated that “at closer inspection, it appears that the source has manipulated the image.” Other news agencies also recalled the image, such as Agence France-Presse, which cited an “editorial issue”.

Reuters also withdrew the image, saying that the sleeve did not line up. However, they did not know how, why or who manipulated the photo.

Why does this matter?

So what’s all the fuss about, you may ask? It’s just a photo of a mother and her children, essentially. It’s mere speculation, however, knowing Princess Catherine’s passion for photography, it is highly possible that she (or at least one of her staff) edited the photo.

Photojournalists and news outlets have very strong rules and ethics that mean that photos and images cannot be edited or changed. This is to ensure truth and transparency and to avoid the problems of creating fake news and biases. This is particularly important in today’s world of AI image generation and deepfakes.

For example, Reuters only allows very limited post-processing of images, such as cropping, resizing the image, or correcting the white balance.

News agencies increasingly have to find ways to check the veracity of photographs. The Content Authenticity Initiative has been introduced by tech companies, camera brands and news agencies to help combat this issue.

Princess Kate underwent abdominal surgery in January, with Kensington Palace stating that she would withdraw from the public eye until at least Easter. This will surely be a blow to the PR department of the Royal family as public speculation and several conspiracy theories came up with their own ideas of where the Princess had gone during this time of absence.

not a single banksy since kate middleton disappeared. coincidence?

— Lucy (@LMAsaysno) February 27, 2024

My favourite theory was that Princess Kate was actually the anonymous graffiti artist Banksy, as ‘he’ had also been absent during the same period of time as the Princess. Of course, correlation does not equal causation, but you never know!

Update: According to the BBC News the Princess of Wales has admitted to photoshopping the image herself and has apologised for causing confusion. “Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing,” she said.

There we go, then. Even a royal princess isn’t entirely happy with how she looks in photos. Much ado about nothing, as it were.