After weeks of concern and rampant conspiracy theories, this touching photo was intended to reassure the world that all was well with the Princess of Wales. Kensington Palace sharing this image of Catherine and her children Sunday morning in honor of Mother's Day in the UK, captioned, Thank you for your kind wishes and continued support over the last two months. The palace saying it was snapped by Prince William last week in Windsor. The princess spent nearly two weeks in the hospital in January for a planned unspecified specified abdominal surgery and has been recuperating in private ever since.

The release of this image was really an opportunity to take control of the narrative around her recovery, to provide a much more positive narrative around her recovery, and to release a lovely image in order to do that. Unfortunately, that is not what has happened as a result of this image being released.

Hours after the palace released the picture, four of the world's biggest photo agencies were moving the image after concluding it had been manipulated. The AP telling ABC News it retracted the image because at closer inspection, it appears that the source had manipulated the image in a way that did not meet AP's photo standards.

Instead of dousing the flames of all this Internet fire, they poured fuel on it. The reality is now the conspiracy theories have gone into overdrive.

Experts pointing out evidence the photo had been edited.

If you look closely, you will see near the wrist the ghost of a sleeve that seemed to have been there before. It's a very tell-tale sign of some type of manipulation of the underlying digital image.

Another anomaly?

If you zoom in on the zipper of Princess Catherine, you will notice near the top that there's a slight this alignment of the zipper, which again, seems to be a ghost of something that was there and had been digitally removed or edited.

And whether it could have been manipulated by artificial intelligence.

I don't think it's an AI-generated photo. I think it was Basically, somebody took a series of photos and was just doing some beautification of the photos to make it look a little bit more visually desirable, and then just left behind some traces of that manipulation.

Most people can see with the naked eye that there's been alterations on that photograph, which you can if you just look at it. Surely the communications people could have seen exactly those same alterations and said to both William and Kate, You can't really put that out. It's completely lacking integrity.

As speculation And then, swirled, Kate was seen today in the car with her husband going to a private appointment. And this morning, the Princess of Wales addressing the uproar in a social media post, saying, 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.

The reality is I think this has been quite innocent. There's been a tendency for the Royal family to put out pictures themselves, to take the pictures themselves. Sometimes you get a much happier, more relaxed set of pictures, particularly when kids are involved.

The edited photo turning scandalous, in part because the 42-year-old princess had not made any public appearances since this walked to church on Christmas Day. Kate, who's one of the most popular members of the Royal family, had not been seen until last week when the paparazzi snapped a photo of her out with her mother. Since announcing her surgery on January 17th, the palace has made only four statements about the princess's health, saying in late February, she is doing well. She is not expected to return to public duties until after Easter. The latest incident adding to the growing scrutiny of the royal family. Shortly after Kate's surgery, King Charles was diagnosed with an undisclosed form of cancer. He stepped back from public appearances while getting outpatient treatment and continuing his royal duties, like receiving the high Commissioner of Jamaica just last week.

This is a really difficult time for the royal family. Both the King and the Princess of Wales are unable to carry out their official duties. And while I think there's a lot of sympathy and a lot of understanding for that on a personal level, it does create a big vacuum in terms of the monarchy's public presence on the world stage.

In February, the heir to the throne addressing the health scares that have rocked the royal family.

I'd like to take this opportunity to say thank you also for the kind messages of support for Catherine and for my father, especially in recent days. It means a great deal to us all.

Prince Harry has a famously strained relationship with his family ever since he and his wife, Megan Markel, stepped away from royal duties four years ago, airing their grievances in Harry's Memoir Spare and in an explosive Netflix documentary.

They were happy to lie to protect my brother. They were never willing to tell the truth to protect us.

I wasn't being thrown to the wolves. I was being fed to the wolves. Upon learning about his father's diagnosis, Prince Harry immediately flew to London. He spoke about it earlier with my colleague, Will Reeve, at this year's Invictus Games.

How did you get the news that the King was ill?

I spoke to him.

And what did you do next?

I jumped on a plane and went to go and see him as soon as I could.

Prince Harry reportedly spent about 45 minutes with his father before flying back home.

How was that visit for you emotionally?

Look, I love my family. The fact that I was able to get on a plane and go and see him and spend any time with him, I'm grateful for that.

If Harry and Megan were here now and they were carrying out public duties, then they would be really contributing to the positive impact that the monarchy was able to make. It is a real shame, and it's a real example of just how slimed down the monarchy has become by accident.

With his brother, reportedly estranged from the family and his father and wife recovering, Prince William has had to shoulder many of the duties of the monarchy. Prince William returned to royal duties 10 days after his wife was released from the hospital, appearing with Tom Cruise at an air ambulance charity.

And Tom, if you wouldn't mind not borrowing either of the new helicopters for the next Mission Impossible, it would be appreciated.

And more recently, visiting a synagogue, mentioning his wife, but not her condition. Both Kath and I are extremely concerned about the rise of an criticism that you guys have talked about so early this morning.

And I'm just so sorry, I'm going to be had to experience that.

Also thrust into a leading role, Queen Camilla. And today, forging an unlikely alliance for Commonwealth Day. Camilla, known as the Other Woman in Charles' first marriage, now leading the procession into Westminster Abbey alongside her stepson.

Seeing Camilla and William side by side was not something that we could have imagined seeing 20 or even 10 years ago. For so long, Camilla was reviled, and now we see her fully fledged queen, completely accepted.

Today, amidst anti-monarchy protests, the palace ignoring calls to release the original unedited photo, perhaps sticking to the famous British motto, Keep calm and carry on.

Everything Royal family do is historic. If we have photographs taken that are not true and are proven to be not true or fake, that's pretty damning for history as well. So history deserves the best. It deserves professional, proper photographs, and you have to be able to trust it. That's the point.

Hi, everyone. George Stefanopouls here. Thanks for checking out the ABC News YouTube channel. If you'd like to get more videos, show highlights, and watch live event coverage, click on the right over subscribe to our channel. And don't forget to download the ABC News app for breaking news alerts. Thanks for watching.