British Petroleum acknowledges it posted on its Website an altered photo that exaggerates the activity at its Gulf oil spill command centre in Houston.
The picture posted over the weekend showed workers monitoring a bank of 10 giant video screens displaying underwater images.
Spokesman Scott Dean says on Tuesday that two screens were blank in the original picture and a staff photographer used Photoshop software to add images.
Mr. Dean says the company put the unaltered picture up on Monday after a blogger for the Website Americablog wrote about telltale discrepancies.
He says the photographer was showing off his Photoshop skills and there was no ill intent.
Mr. Dean says BP has ordered workers to use Photoshop only for things like colour correction, cropping and removing glare.