One of Northern Ireland's veteran news photographers on Kate picture debacle: 'It is quite amateurish - I think blame rests with advisors more than her'

​Alan Lewis, a long-serving news snapper who has photographed all the leading royals including Kate, and said it’s “hard to take a bad picture of her”.

When he first saw the image on a mobile phone “it didn’t raise any suspicions” – though he was “amazed how they’d managed to get all the kids smiling along with Kate at exactly the right time”.

However the problems became apparent when major news agencies looked into the details.

And when looked at in such high-resolution, there were some “glaring” oddities.

Mr Lewis pointed to the Daily Telegraph’s coverage, where reporters had highlighted a number of strange things – phantom locks of hair that seemed to fade away, a zip that went nowhere, and a corner of a skirt that seemed out of place.

“If you zoom in close, you can see there has been a bit of photoshopping there: it’s quite bad actually,” he laughed.

“I thought it was pretty amateurish of Kensington Palace to actually issue the picture…

"Certainly quality control wasn’t evident.

"It feeds the conspiracy theorists, the fact it’s been altered. I’d say Kensington Palace would need to issue a proper picture of her to sort of quell all the rumour-mongers.”

He doubts any “malicious intent” but “the people advising her should’ve caught on to that – I’d say it’s their fault more than her fault”.

When all is said and done, though, he thinks “it’s much ado about not a lot”.