Kate appeared in a second British royal portrait that was digitally changed

News outlet revealed on Tuesday that a second royal photo that Kensington Palace, the residence of Prince William and his wife Kate, had sent to the media had been digitally changed in eight different locations.

The image, which was made public in April of last year to commemorate the late Queen Elizabeth’s 97th birthday, featured the former queen encircled by a number of her great-grandchildren and grandchildren. Kensington Palace reported at the time that Kate, 42, had taken it at the Scottish royal home Balmoral Castle the summer before.

Getty Images alerted its clients earlier on Tuesday that the Balmoral photo had been “digitally enhanced at source,” but it did not provide any other information. “Getty Images is undertaking a review of handout images and in accordance with its editorial policy is placing an editor’s note on images where the source has suggested they could be digitally enhanced,” stated a spokesman.

Even though Getty, Reuters, and other news organizations did not notice any problems with the distribution at the time, Reuters photo editors examined the image and discovered eight distinct areas where digital cloning had been used to change it. It took Reuters a while to figure out why the changes were made.

By replicating pixels, one may relocate or mask objects or sections in a photo using a technique known as digital cloning.

Regarding the picture, Kensington Palace has refrained from commenting. “Reuters is updating its procedures related to vetting images from Kensington Palace after confirming a second altered photograph,” a Reuters spokesman stated. Photos must adhere to Reuters’ editorial standards for picture quality, accuracy, and dependability in order to be compliant with the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles, opens new tab.”

A Mother’s Day photo of Kate with her three kids that the palace released was removed earlier this month by Reuters and a number of other major news outlets due to post-publication scrutiny that revealed it did not adhere to their editorial standards. Kate apologized for any misunderstanding the next day.

She posted a comment on X stating, “Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing.” “I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused.” The problem with the photos that have been altered coincides with a lot of conjecture on social media over Kate’s health following her January stomach surgery.

She made her first appearance on camera following her surgery on Monday in a video that the Sun tabloid released.