BP removes another altered photo from site

HOUSTON, July 23 (UPI) -- BP said it removed another manipulated Gulf of Mexico oil disaster photo from its Web site and warned contract photographers against altering future images.

The acknowledgment Thursday of the photo -- altered to make it appear a helicopter was flying over the gulf rather than sitting on a rig or ship near the spill site -- came a day after BP admitted to posting a doctored photo of engineers examining screens at BP's oil spill control center in Houston, where the British company has its U.S. headquarters, CNN reported Friday.

BP spokesman Scott Dean said the same contract photographer used the image-manipulating computer program Photoshop to change features of the images.

After removing the pictures from the site, BP posted them and the originals on its Flickr page so the public can compare them, CNN said.

"We told the photographer not to do that (cutting and pasting) again, and he understands," Dean said. He said BP gave other photographers the same instruction.

The altered photos were discovered and reported by several bloggers.

The changes weren't major but their discovery came as BP worked to be candid about the disaster, CNN said.