If an intern had produced the sort of editing the Princess of Wales did on her photo of her and her children, they would not get a job, a senior photographic agency executive has told Sky News.

Eric Baradat, a photo director at Agence France-Presse (AFP), described Kate’s efforts as “really amateur” and said he and his colleagues “joked this morning, saying if an intern was doing that at AFP, they wouldn’t get a job, no chance at all”.

He told Sky News they soon realised there was “some very strange business going on” with the picture after it was published on Sunday.

He said that “the more you look at the picture, the more you enlarge it, it becomes obvious that it’s been manipulated or altered or doctored or whatever you call it, really badly… in a way that is really amateur” and “really badly done”.

As to how the image slipped through their checks, he admitted “doubting images” was one of their responsibilities, “especially nowadays, where no image can be trusted. Basically, no single image can be trusted.”

However, all the agencies have “total trust with the material that Kensington Palace is usually sending out”, especially given the picture was one without “political consequences”.

As experienced editors, he said, they should “debunk a lot of the fake [pictures]” and sometimes use software programmes to help identify them.

But in the case of the 42-year-old princess’s editing efforts, “you don’t need that”, as “it’s obvious with the human eye, with somebody that knows digital images that there’s not even a need for that”.

AFP was one of the agencies that told media outlets to “kill” the photo from their systems and archives.

The Princess of Wales apologised “for any confusion”, admitting on Monday she had edited the Mother’s Day image.

“Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing,” she said in a statement.

Associated Press told Sky News the photo showed an “inconsistency in the alignment of Princess Charlotte’s left hand”.

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On Monday afternoon, a Reuters spokesperson said: “The source of yesterday’s handout photo said that she has experimented with editing. The altered photo didn’t meet Reuters standards of image quality, and that is the reason we withdrew it yesterday.”

The photo was the first official image released since Kate had abdominal surgery in January.

Royal sources said the Princess of Wales made “minor adjustments” and that she and Prince William – who took the photo – wanted to offer an informal picture of the family together for Mother’s Day.

“The Wales family spent Mother’s Day together and had a wonderful day,” the source added.