Once again North Korea has been caught faking officials photos.
The secretive state has a reputation for doctoring images of the regime and in the past it has been accused of photoshopping shots of war exercises to make its military look bigger, and releasing photos of non-existent missiles.
The latest alleged deception is a scene showing North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his staff at a new children’s hospital under construction in Pyongyang.
It was put out by the the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) and online users immediately seized on it as a fraud.
“Can someone please help the North Korean government out? The propaganda ministers stink at Photoshop,” wrote Brian Ashcroft in a post on the gaming website Kotaku.
Ashcroft claimed it was clear from the shadow and lighting that Kim Jong-un and the others pictured alongside him had been superimposed onto the image. He said Kim Jong-un’s hand shadow in particular looks too clean and defined.
However other online commentators denied the photo was faked, saying the superimposed quality could be an effect of the flash. They also wondered why North Korea would bother to fake such an uncontroversial image.
In March the KCNA released a photo showing a fleet of hovercraft with marines landing on an unidentified beach.
The photo featured at least eight hovercraft. But experts agreed that most of the craft looked like they had been photoshopped.
Not long after AFP issued a mandatory kill on the image, saying: “This general service picture… of March 26, 2013 is being removed due to excessive digital alteration, compromising its news content. Please remove all copies from your systems. We and thank you for your cooperation, and apologize for any inconvenience.”
A year earlier photos of a parade in the capital that featured six missiles were also judged fakes. Analysts said undulating casings on the missiles suggested the metal was too thin to withstand flight.
This story originally appeared on News.com.au.