Viewers took to Twitter to point out that the images had been edited.
Lorraine Kelly’s daytime TV show has received a number of complaints after showing an edited before and after snap of the Himalayan mountain range in South and East Asia.
During a segment from April 22, Lorraine interviewed Mike Gunton who worked on the David Attenborough documentary, The Year The Earth Changed, which examines the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the natural world.
The programme then displayed a side-by-side image of two shots of the Himalayas overlooking a city. In one image, smog surrounds the mountains, while the other picture shows that the smog has cleared.
“We’re seeing the Himalayas before and after,” Lorraine says. “You can see the split-screen there. That was before when it was just smog basically, and then look at that. Crystal-clear views. Remarkable isn’t it?”
However, eagle-eyed viewers of the show took to social media to highlight the fact that the images were edited.
Twitter users noticed that the exact same washing is on the line in both, and the exact same people can be seen in the corner of both images.
The original documentary clarified that the images, which were taken by photographer Anshul Chopra, were edited as a part of an animation to show the effects of pollution.
However, this was not evident during the Lorraine segment.
https://twitter.com/anshulchopraa/status/1246066977996603395?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1246066977996603395%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fmetro.co.uk%2F2021%2F05%2F06%2Florraine-gets-fresh-complaints-over-photoshopped-himalayas-photos-14527817%2F
A spokesperson for Ofcom told Metro that they received over 100 complaints after the segment.
ITV commented on the programme saying:
“The images that were used are taken directly from the David Attenborough documentary The Year the Earth Changed.
“The before and after was screen grabbed to show the difference, as it is shown via animation in the documentary.”
