Kensington Palace released a photo of Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales, on Sunday. The photo, also shared on the royal couple’s Instagram account, shows Middleton sitting and smiling, surrounded by her three children. The photo, purportedly taken by her husband Prince William in Windsor, was widely shared by news agencies including the Associated Press, AFP, Reuters and Getty Images. Hours later, the agencies withdrew the image and warned their clients not to use it under any circumstances.
“Upon closer inspection, it appears that the source has manipulated this image,” the AP wrote in a notice of the alleged killing. AFP cited “editorial issues” and said the photo “may no longer be available” used in any way”.News outlets that published this photo include New York Times and Washington postand then removed it.
As of Sunday evening in the US, William and Kate’s Instagram posts were still up. “Thank you for your kind wishes and continued support over the past two months,” the caption read. “Happy Mother’s Day to everyone. C.” (Mother’s Day in the UK is March 10.)
While observers pointed out some seeming inconsistencies in the image, it was the area around Princess Charlotte’s hands that attracted the most scrutiny. The pattern on her skirt seems to overlap where the sweater should overlap. An AP spokesperson quoted to Wired the following portion of the outlet’s own reporting on the incident: “Upon closer inspection, it appears that the source has manipulated the image in a manner that does not meet AP photo standards. Photo shows Princess Charlotte’s left hand is inconsistently arranged.”
The AP guidelines do allow for “minor adjustments to photos,” such as cropping, conversion to grayscale and other adjustments that generally do not deviate from the original scene. They’re otherwise very restrictive; it doesn’t even allow photographers to remove red-eye from their subjects.
While the purpose of the photo seemed to be to combat the conspiracy surrounding Middleton’s prolonged absence from the public eye following her Jan. 16 abdominal surgery, if anything, the photo’s apparent manipulation has had the opposite effect .
According to reports, Middleton was discharged from a private hospital clinic in London on January 29 after 13 days of recovery. According to reports, her only public appearance since then was in a car driving near Windsor Castle. A grainy paparazzi photo captured the incident.
The absence sparked a flurry of conspiracy theories, mostly focusing on the severity of Middleton’s condition. The controversy surrounding Sunday’s photo sparked a new round of speculation. It was the entirely predictable result of an unexplained error in judgment: why release such an obviously altered image when the stakes were so high and the scrutiny so intense? Kensington Palace did not respond to a request for comment.
The incident comes at a time when the media and public are on high alert about artificial intelligence and its ability to create lifelike images (and increasingly, sound and video) based on simple prompts.
Concerns about AI manipulation are well-founded, but Middleton’s photo is a useful reminder that modifying a photo doesn’t require anything so high-tech. If anything, it appears to be a botched Photoshop job, a more traditional form of image adjustment. While Photoshop itself is embracing AI tools, it doesn’t appear to be the kind of completely invented image that’s keeping techies up at night.
It’s unclear what exactly happened here. If this is a bad Photoshop job, perhaps the most important takeaway is that most digital manipulators don’t leave that many telltale traces.