“Both hands have been added, that’s for sure.” an expert deciphers a fake photo of Kate Middleton.

We don’t cheat die-hard fans. And for good reason, this Sunday, March 10, they were the first to raise the alarm after Kate Middleton’s healed photo was published on social networks. The image was reassuring, showing the Princess of Wales with her three children in her arms, smiling on the balcony of her home in Windsor, as if to confirm her good recovery. But after enthusiasm came doubt. “Little Louie’s right hand is blurry”; “Kate’s body and head are disproportionate”, “The picture is photoshopped”, we can read in the comments. Faced with mounting controversy and official scrutiny from several press agencies such as AFP, Kate Middleton was finally forced to accept the unthinkable. yes, her photo has indeed been altered. But how much?

Small touches

For graphic designer and artificial intelligence trainer Pierre Saal, photo editing is definitely an amateur job. “The changes are too rough to have been made by a specialist, or maybe the latter wanted to ensure that we see those mistakes, which seems unlikely,” he assures. Madame Figaro. The expert thus mentions several elements that have been modified in part thanks to Photoshop Generative Fill, Adobe’s generative filling software. He elaborates. “With this tool, these small corrections take a quarter of an hour at most. It’s very affordable and very easy to use.”

So, first there would be a failure on Princess Charlotte’s knee, the outline of which appears to be blurred and somewhat flattened. “We have the impression that an erasure took place. The reasons could be that we wanted to reduce the length of the elongated thigh, or that we wanted to remove the flowers from the side. Regardless, this work is really badly done,” the analyst notes.

Among other clues, Kate Middleton’s hair fade—the left side—changes the look and tone. Here again, Pierre Saal hardly puts forward the possible reasons and multiplies the hypotheses. “These small details show the desire to improve the character. Maybe Kate Middleton just didn’t like the way her hair was done, maybe we saw some white… Again, it doesn’t matter, other than a job poorly done. you”: Moreover, another problem is revealed on Charlotte’s skirt. The outfit looks fuzzy and is especially oddly juxtaposed with the level of her big brother Prince George’s arms. The expert also appreciates small visual inconsistencies in several places, surely the result of “pixel shifts” due to errors in the photo itself.

Both hands added

For him, the biggest mistake in this fake photo is primarily the Princess of Wales’ arms around the waists of her two children. “There are no retouches, but two additions: left and right,” he assures. Both hands are added, that’s for sure. For example, we clearly see that they are different. They are not the same color, the sizes of the fingers and nails are also different. For the rest, the latter does not distinguish any disproportion between Kate Middleton’s body and head, a hypothesis that has been raised several times by royal fans and social media users. “It’s conceivable that the face has been replaced, but it’s the work of a real expert in photomontage, which then looks out of place with all these little mistakes next to it.” As for the speculations about Prince Louis’ twisted fingers, the expert is categorical: there are no changes here. “The pressure of a finger pressed on the table, as a result of which blood rises to the level of the nail, cannot be created by artificial intelligence at such an amateur level,” he adds.

So Pierre Saal would be sure of one thing: the image is authentic to the extent that Prince William’s wife was sitting in this chair with her three children, in the same place and at the same time. “Apart from the hands, which were certainly added to give the character more emotion, the rest is just an aesthetic detail often used by photography enthusiasts,” continues the graphic designer and expert. And to conclude. “On the other hand, it’s worth noting that what’s unusual about Generative Fill is the tool’s ability to create details that are impossible to see with the naked eye. We can restore the reflection of the sun on objects, faces, etc. Artificial intelligence today is capable of completely natural rendering. It’s a mystery that the Royal Family, with so many resources at their disposal, could publish such a crude and unsuccessful montage…” So, if Kate Middleton hasn’t been seen officially in public since her hospitalization last January, this blunder should. still fuel the wildest theories.