After being criticized for including a doctored photo in a campaign mailing, Democratic mayoral candidate, C. Virginia Fields, tried to control the damage yesterday, but seemed to raise some new questions.

Ms. Fields, borough president of Manhattan, said the photo, which featured her in the center of an ethnically diverse group at what appears to be a news conference, was created by a consulting firm called Winning Directions.

She read a statement from the firm yesterday in which it acknowledged its misstep and said the image was intended as a “graphic representation” of her broader campaign message. A receptionist who answered the phone at the firm later in the day said officials there would not comment further.

Ms. Fields said she would immediately discontinue the mailing. She said that she did not believe there were any other altered photos, but that her campaign would continue an evaluation. She did not take direct responsibility for the error and said suggesting that she “had to use altered photos to show broad-based … could not be further from the truth.”

When asked whether she knew all nine people that appear with her in the photo, she said: “By and large, I know all of them except the two Asians that were in there – I don’t know them.”

City Council Member Charles Barron, who has endorsed Ms. Fields, said the story was “much to do about nothing.”

An associate professor of government at American University, Candice Nelson, said it sounded “unethical.”