Read more
Storm in a Royal Doulton teacup
Controversy erupts as Princess Catherine faces scrutiny over allegedly retouched family photo.
A combination of pictures made on March 11, 2024 shows a handout photo released by Kensington Palace on March 10, 2024 of Britain’s Catherine, Princess of Wales with her children, alongside a version highlighting several inconsistencies in alignments after it came to light that the handout had been manipulated. – AFP and other leading agencies withdrew the image, the first to be released since she underwent abdominal surgery, after the inconsitencies were identified, including a missing part on Charlotte’s sleeve, Charlotte’s hair ending abruptly on her shoulder and the zip on the Princess of Wales being lighter than the rest of it. (Photo by Prince of Wales / KENSINGTON PALACE / AFP)
Who of you has not winced when looking at family photos, wondering if something couldn’t be done to make them more flattering?
In the pre-digital days, you had to know a really skilled photo retoucher to massage your image to a more beautiful state but, these days, there is all manner of software and even, lately, artificial intelligence (AI) to manipulate the pixels into a more pleasing agglomeration.
You can even do it at the scene of the crime with your AI-enabled smartphone.
ALSO READ: ‘I do occasionally experiment with editing’– Kate Middleton apologises about photo controversy
So, perhaps, it’s really a storm in a Royal Doulton teacup that so much has been written – and said – about the fiddling which Catherine, Princess of Wales, supposedly did to a family picture officially released by Kensington Palace.
The Princess was forced to go public after a number of news agencies withdrew the image after doubts were raised about it being altered – something which violates their strict policies on not using pictures which have been manipulated.
While it may have been a harmless “experiment”, as Kate put it in a hastily issued clarification, the incident does point to the darker side of information manipulation, which has only become more worrying as AI image and text modification and invention improves.
ALSO READ: Princess of Wales wishes mothers in the UK a Happy Mother’s Day, as she continues to recover
