Adobe stock price soars amid Kate Middleton’s failed photoshop

Amid the backlash the Royal Family is facing after it was discovered that a photo of Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton and her children which was shared on Mother’s Day had been altered, photoshop’s parent company, Adobe, has seen a spike in its stock price. 

Sky News had claimed that the image was saved in photo editing software Adobe Photoshop twice on an Apple Mac; the first at 9.54pm on Friday night, with the second made the next morning at 9.39am. It also found the picture was taken at Adelaide Cottage on a Canon 5D mark IV.

The photograph of Kate and her children, taken by the Prince of Wales, was the first to be issued since the princess’s abdominal surgery. Royal sources said the Princess of Wales made “minor adjustments” and that Kate and the Prince of Wales wanted to offer an informal picture of the family together for Mother’s Day.

Despite calls for the original to be published, Kensington Palace said it would not be reissuing the unedited photograph of Kate and her children. The Palace has faced growing pressure over the debacle with the controversy branded “damaging” to the public’s trust in the royal family. Concerns were raised over a missing part of Princess Charlotte’s sleeve and the misaligned edge of her skirt, with other speculations including the positioning of Kate’s zip.

After Kate Middleton admitted that the photo was edited on social media, Adobe (ADBE) went from $551.69 on Friday, March 8, did a little Monday morning stretch to $552.45, and by the end of the day, they were ridin’ high at $560.42. 

A report also revealed that Kate Middleton has a subscription to Adobe’s Creative Cloud, adding $3B to the company’s market cap.

Business writer Trung Phan immediately put the company’s $3B market cap to Princess Kate’s claim she’d used Adobe’s product.

Nonetheless, while a whole set of conspiracy theories are floating about why the royals doctored the photo, Kate’s apparent falling on the sword doesn’t explain why the Palace lied about when the photo was taken, nor does it shed any light on what’s really going on with Kate’s now 2-month-long recovery from abdominal surgery.