'Absolutely miserable':

How Princess Kate is doing after photoshop scandal

Princess Kate is going through a difficult time at the moment. Not only has she had an operation on her stomach, but a Photoshop error is also causing gloating.

(Bild: APA/AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Kate, Princess of Wales, is in a "fragile mental and physical state" after the media frenzy surrounding an edited Mother's Day photo, warns a royal expert and calls for people to "leave her alone".

In mid-January, Princess Kate had to undergo a serious abdominal operation in a London clinic - since then, the wildest rumors have been raging about her on social media. 

As the Princess' diagnosis remained under wraps and there was no sign of life from her for weeks, despite King Charles repeatedly appearing in public after his cancer diagnosis, things got worse by the day. A bad paparazzi photo of her was celebrated as a sensation.

Princess Kate is going through a difficult time at the moment. Not only has she undergone abdominal surgery, but a Photoshop error is also causing gloating.

(Bild: APA/AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Fake idyll
Shortly afterwards, Kate posted herself on Instagram. With an idyllic photo with her children for Mother's Day. Everyone is beaming at the camera, the lawn is green, the trees are in bloom. Too good to be true. As it turned out, the picture, officially taken by Prince William, had been edited. Photo agencies withdrew it because they suspected it was fake.

Kate finally admitted to the editing on Monday and explained that, like many "amateur photographers, I occasionally experiment with photo editing". She also apologized for "the confusion".

And that should be enough of the persecution of the princess, according to many.

Presumably, she simply had the best pictures from a series of images put together automatically to make it look as nice as possible. With three children, it is often a great challenge to get everyone to join in at the same time and the fact that these cannot be photos from before Christmas can be seen in Prince Louis' gap in his teeth, which was not yet there in December.

The perfect family idyll: Princess Kate with her children. But she had to admit that she had edited the picture.

(Bild: APA/AFP/KENSINGTON PALACE/Prince of Wales)

"Absolutely unhappy"
Royal expert Jennie Bond warned against "forcing Kate to publish all the pictures" and is convinced that the mother-of-three must feel "absolutely miserable" after the huge uproar surrounding her work.

She feels that Kate's Mother's Day has been "ruined" by the affair at a time when she is already miserable and she also "didn't look very happy" when she was photographed in the car with Prince William the day after the scandal broke.

This photo, in which the princess turns away and her face cannot be seen at all, is also the subject of heated debate at the moment.

Allegedly, an old photo of Kate, in which she is wearing a large bow on her neck, was mounted next to William. As an indication, mismatched bricks can be seen on a wall behind the car. 

A Photoshop user demonstrates in a video on Twitter how the image could have been manipulated: 

Just "cropped and brightened"
Goff Photos - the agency that photographed William and Kate in the Range Rover - has since denied this theory to "E! News", explaining that the images were "cropped and lightened" but that "nothing was manipulated".

It looks like it will be some time before the furor dies down and every photo that comes out of the palace or from paparazzi agencies will probably be scrutinized for a while yet.

After all, the hunting instinct has only really been fueled by the whole mess and will probably only subside when Princess Kate actually returns to the public eye in the glare of the world press.