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From Kate’s face being ‘transplanted’ from a magazine cover to outlandish children’s clothing rumours, the conspiracy theories surrounding the now infamous Mother’s Day photo hit a new frenzy yesterday.
The fallout from the Palace’s handling of the crisis showed no sign of abating as online speculators shared increasingly ludicrous claims.
Among the most ludicrous are suggestions that the Princess of Wales was not present at last Friday’s photo shoot at all, but digitally ‘swapped in’ from a Vogue photograph taken eight years ago. Armchair detectives have also claimed that the children’s clothing and other clues suggest the photo was indeed taken last December and stitched together for publication on Mother’s Day.
Despite a concerted effort by the palace to quell the smoldering rumours, the most eccentric theories have now been shared online tens of thousands of times.
The rumors all stem from the now admitted fact that the portrait was digitally edited. Detailed examination of the image shows that pixels in at least 26 areas have been noticeably altered, from Charlotte’s sleeve to Kate’s misaligned zipper. The errors have fueled the extraordinary theories. So is there a grain of truth in any of the conspiracy theories?
To mark Mother’s Day, Kensington Palace posted a photo of the Princess of Wales with her three children on their official social media platforms on Sunday, March 10
It ‘cloned’ the VOGUE COVER
A video by a social media user purporting to demonstrate that the Princess of Wales’s face was displaced from the June 2016 cover of Vogue and placed on her 2024 Mother’s Day portrait has been viewed 35 million times.
With her trademark smile and tilted head, Kate’s face is remarkably similar in the two photos.
But the theory has been debunked by Eliot Higgins, the founder of forensic investigation website Bellingcat, who said: ‘There are so many minor differences, like the reflection of the light in her pupils, the light and shadow in her face, the teeth visible, wrinkles . . . that it is clearly just a photo of the same woman from roughly the same angle, not the same exact image. It hurts my brain that I even have to point this out.’
He added: ‘These people play spot the difference and lose.’
There could also be copyright implications if Kate had cut and pasted her Vogue portrait taken by renowned royal portrait photographer Hugo Burnand.
There was a theory that the Princess of Wales’s face was displaced from the June 2016 cover of Vogue and put on her 2024 Mother’s Day portrait
Princess Charlotte’s matching red shirt
With its signature ruffled neckline, the red cashmere sweater eight-year-old Charlotte is wearing under her cardigan appears to be the exact same garment she wore to an event in December when – along with her brothers George, ten and Louis , five, and the Princess of Wales – she was pictured visiting the Windsor Baby Bank, which was set up for mothers in need.
A US internet “scout” claimed Charlotte was also wearing the same shoes – and suggested the image was compiled from pictures taken on 11 December.
Charlotte even appears to be wearing the same pink bracelet, reportedly ‘faded’ in color since December.
Meanwhile, George’s checkered shirt and blue jumper also appear to be close to the ones he wore to the baby bank visit, although the collar should have been shaded blue for this to be the same shirt.
Yet neither George nor Charlotte were seen in the baby bank posing in the same positions as they appeared in the portrait.
And even royal children sometimes wear the same clothes. Lee Walton, image technician at DMG Newspapers, said of the Mother’s Day photo: “Despite what online conspiracy theorists would have you believe, I can categorically say that nobody’s head or hands have been completely replaced.”
Denies claims over Louis’ teeth
Another way to debunk the theory that the photo was taken last December is Louis’ missing tooth. In the portrait, the little boy has lost one of his lower milk teeth.
But the tooth was there in pictures of him on Christmas Day at Sandringham, suggesting the Mother’s Day portrait was taken after, not before, Christmas.
Princess Charlotte pictured visiting the Windsor Baby Bank set up for mothers in need last December
Prince Louis pictured with Mia Tindall on Christmas Day at Sandringham
Why are the leaves on the trees so green?
Others have insisted that the photo is from earlier in 2023 because of the green leaves on a plant behind them.
But Guy Barter, chief adviser at the Royal Horticultural Society, said it was not possible to identify the plant and pointed out that Britain has had a mild winter, with many plants in leaf ahead of times in the US, where many online critics live.
People in the UK also shared photos of their gardens showing green leaves on bushes and plants.
What are the telltale signs of photoshop?
The palace consistently refuses to release the ‘original’ photo before Kate’s changes. What does this tell us?
It would be a considerable gamble to suggest that Prince William took more than one “original photo” during last week’s 40-minute session in Windsor. And some might want to show the young royal highnesses engaged in less than optimal positions.
Perhaps a child blinked as the shutter clicked, or yawned – or even made ‘bunny ears’ in a moment of playfulness. Think how strongly crossed fingers are on the grinning five-year-old Prince Louis.
Whatever these ‘original’ pictures show – and the palace will never release them – it is clear that none of the frames were considered ‘perfect’ in themselves.
By the time the Prince of Wales, acting as official photographer, handed over his wife’s £2,900 Canon 5D Mark IV camera, it is likely to have had several almost identical shots, with different members of the family looking their best in different settings .
Catherine, then Duchess of Cambridge, takes pictures as Prince William takes part in helicopter maneuvers over Lake Dalvay in 2011
The most likely explanation is therefore entirely innocent – that Kate, 42, having reviewed her husband’s photographic efforts on the screen of her Apple Mac, harmlessly performed a simple editing trick to fuse the best of each frame into one composite ‘perfect’ family portrait .
As she herself said in the mea culpa published after the furore went global: ‘Like many amateur photographers, I occasionally experiment with editing.’
Details buried in the file’s ‘metadata’ properties show that it was edited using Adobe Photoshop at 21.54 Friday and at 9:39 a.m. Saturday, Sky News reported.
Photoshop has a feature called ‘Photo Merge’ which is designed for this very purpose. It allows you to assemble a composite image by selecting the best parts from two or more nearly identical photographs.
The software can ‘intelligently’ replace, for example, a blinking child’s face with the same child smiling beautifully from a photo taken a moment later. But it’s not seamless, and it takes its toll, as the Royals have discovered to their detriment.