A professional photographer has weighed in on Kate’s photo editing skills and analysed where the mistakes are most obvious.

Courtney Hobbs, a photographer and creative director of Collective Digital UK, told The Times: “Straight away, you can tell there’s something not right about this photo. The biggest thing for me is Charlotte’s sleeve.

“However, more interestingly, on the left — and this is a major red flag — is the panelling behind Prince Louis’s leg, where you can see the white step in front of the door has not been correctly aligned.”

She added: “But why would you use a clone stamp to do that in such a small area? It’s been through Photoshop but they’ve done a bad job and they’ve made a basic error on it.

“I think it’s been done for aesthetic purposes rather than covering anything major up. But I am shocked and surprised by how little detail has gone into the sign-off process. No one has said ‘hang on’ and spotted it.”

A day after an edited photo of the Princess of Wales and her three children was released, Kate herself tweeted an apology for the confusion.

A post from Kensington Palace on X reads: “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. I hope everyone celebrating had a very happy Mother’s Day. C”

Royal author Omid Scobie, seen as cheerleader for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, accused Kensington Palace of having a “long history of lying”, and said gaining back public trust was now “an almost impossible task”.

Scobie wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that if the manipulated Mothers’ Day photograph was an isolated incident, it was an “unfortunate error”.

He added: “But with the Palace’s long history of lying, covering up, and even issuing statements on behalf of family members without their permission (cc: Prince Harry), it’s becoming increasingly difficult for the public to believe a word (and now photo) they share.

“Gaining that back at this point is an almost impossible task.”

The ceremony will be followed by a Commonwealth Day Reception at Marlborough House.

The decision by major picture agencies to pull the first picture of the Princess of Wales after her abdominal surgery, over fears it has been manipulated, is “very odd”, a royal photographer has said.

The photo, taken by Prince William in Windsor, was released by the royal family to mark Mother’s Day and showed Kate Middleton smiling surrounded by her three children. A few hours later the photo was recalled by picture agencies, including the Associated Press and Reuters.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4 Today’s programme on Monday (11 March), royal photographer Ian Lloyd said “manipulation” of royal photographs was “common”, but the decision to pull it was “very rare”.

Mr Lloyd added: “Someone at Kensington Palace is not vey good at Photoshop.”

The princess is known to be a keen photographer and revealed in 2021 that she takes so many family photographs that her children sometimes object.

“Everyone’s like, ‘Mummy, please stop taking photographs’,” she said.

An examination of the photo’s meta data revealed it was saved in Adobe Photoshop twice on an Apple Mac on Friday and Saturday.

The data analysed by Sky News also showed the picture was taken on a Canon Camera.

The Mother’s Day photo of Kate Middleton has exposed a public relations problem for the monarchy, an expert has said.

Public relations and crisis consultant Mark Borkowski said: “There doesn’t seem to be that much joined up strategic thinking at the heart of the royal family at the moment, which leads to these problems where it’s a very difficult organisation to manage in terms of PR.”

He added: “It’s a nightmare, even the softer stories of Edward turning 60 this week haven’t really resonated at all because no one’s interested in them, they’re interested in the stars they’re not interested in the supporting cast and that is a problem at the moment. They are under pressure, massively under pressure, this is a massive own goal.”

Speaking about Kate’s statement, he said: “It’s plausible she’s at home playing with the computer and using an AI tool, but if they’re really going to regain any sort of trust they should release the unedited photo, it can’t be that bad if they just made a few tweaks.

“I find they have risen to the challenge, provided the statement as an explanation – the question is with all the conspiracy theories running around, is whether people believe it and I’m not sure that they will.”