I find this article to be problematic: 1. It claims 20% of images in articles are digitally altered, but immediately that this figure is essentially irrelevant

I find this article to be problematic: 1. It claims 20% of images in articles are digitally altered, but immediately that this figure is essentially irrelevant - they count things like increasing contrast for better print visibility. There is no information in the article about regarding the fraction of papers in which photos were altered illegitimately. 2. The article seems to offer conflicting "levels" of alteration. First, level 1 is said to be the harmless alterations, but then it is described as splicing images from different experiments. 3. The article claims that there is a "the growing problem of image manipulation in scientific papers". Is there? We've already observed no information is provided about the breadth of the problem at the moment (point (1.)); and - there is no hint of indication of this having somehow gotten worse recently.