Princess of Wales’ photo of Queen Elizabeth, young royals reportedly altered

Past photos taken by the Princess of Wales have been re-examined, with Getty Images claiming this 2022 picture was ‘digitally enhanced at the source’.

Getty Images has identified elements of digital editing in this picture of the late Queen Elizabeth II and young royals.

A picture of Queen Elizabeth II taken by the Princess of Wales has been flagged by a photo agency as digitally altered, after it was inspected following the Mother’s Day picture scandal.

The photo, taken in 2022 before being released in 2023, features the late queen sitting alongside ten of her great-grandchildren and younger grandchildren at Balmoral Castle.

The alleged alterations had gone unreported until now when the image was re-examined by Getty Images, as reported by the UK Telegraph.

The image was “digitally enhanced at source”, Getty Images claimed in an editor’s note.

Catherine is reported to have taken the photo in August 2022 before its release on what would have been the queen’s birthday on April 21, 2023. It was put through greater scrutiny now due to Catherine’s confession to having digitally altered a photo released on Instagram on March 11.

Catherine, 42, posted on Instagram to mark Mother’s Day in the UK with a photo of herself and her three children, George, Charlotte and Louis.

In the following hours a number of photo agencies issued a “kill” notice on the photo, citing indications that it had been manipulated. Catherine went on to concede that she had altered the photo herself.

“Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing,” she wrote on X.

“I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused.”

The 2022 photo of the queen and her family features a number of possible alterations. For one, Queen Elizabeth’s skirt has a plaid pattern that is not congruous throughout, suggesting a section of the image was repositioned.

Sections of the couch are similarly misaligned next to two of the queen’s grandchildren, leading to seemingly impossible shadowing. Those can be seen next to Savannah Phillips and Prince George.

Near Prince Louis there’s a spot of inconsistent shadow and a seemingly random strip of colour.

The Prince and Princess of Wales were spotted in public on Sunday. Picture: The Sun

Catherine was filmed on Sunday afternoon out in public at a Windsor farm shop. She was seen along with her husband Prince William at the market near the royal home of Adelaide Cottage on the Windsor Estate. The clip was published by the UK’s The Sun.

Catherine shrunk from the public eye in recent months in lieu of an undisclosed illness requiring an abdominal surgery.

Catherine’s doctored photo from this month was the first public image of her following surgery. She had previously been snapped by a paparazzo driving out of Windsor Castle the same week. Prior to this she had not been seen in public since Christmas.

Through the period, Buckingham Palace has requested respect for the privacy of the family.

Catherine spent 13 days in hospital.