By Nina Frazier Mashable

The World Press Photo Foundation is denying accusations that its Photo of the Year is fake.

In February, a panel of international judges selected Paul Hansen’s photograph “Gaza Burial,” which shows a procession of weeping men carrying the bodies of deceased Palestinian children wrapped in sheets.

World Press Photo submitted the files for forensic review following controversy that spiraled from a blog post by image analyst Neal Krawetz, who alleged that the photo was actually a composite of three separate images. The story was later picked up by tech blog ExtremeTech.

However, after carrying out its own investigation, World Press Photo said Krawetz’s analysis is “deeply flawed.”

“It is clear that the published photo was retouched with respect to both global and local color and tone. Beyond this, however, we find no evidence of significant photo manipulation or compositing,” two photo experts said in a World Press Photo statement released Tuesday.

Using the original files and evidence, independent experts concluded that the pixels in the submitted JPEG image match the original RAW file.

“When I compare the RAW file with the prize-winning version I can indeed see that there has been a fair amount of post-production, in the sense that some areas have been made lighter and others darker. But regarding the positions of each pixel, all of them are exactly in the same place in the JPEG (the prize-winning image) as they are in the RAW file. I would therefore rule out any question of a composite image,” said Eduard de Kam, digital photography expert at the NIDF (Nederlands Instituut voor Digitale Fotografie).

The World Press Photo Foundation presents the highest-profile award for press photography every year. Hansen, who denies compositing the images, described in detail his processing techniques to a panel of judges prior to receiving the honor.

Image via World Press Photo; has been altered to obscure faces of children in homepage image

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