Amy Tresidder, a Democratic Oswego County legislator looking to make the leap to the state Senate against incumbent Republican Patricia A. Ritchie, needs all the exposure she can get.

But Mrs. Tresidder didn’t get any help from the Oswego Health newsletter, which digitally edited her out of a ribbon-cutting photograph taken in April.

Representatives for Mrs. Ritchie — whom Mrs. Tresidder will face Nov. 6 — remained in the photograph. But the organization insists it did not cut Mrs. Tresidder out of the photograph because of political favoritism, but rather because it couldn’t identify her in the caption.

“We have apologized to Amy by both phone and by letter,” said Marion Ciciarelli, the organization’s public relations manager.

The organization’s president and CEO, Ann C. Gilpin, donated $175 to Mrs. Ritchie in 2011. But no political malice was intended, Ms. Ciciarelli said.

“She was very sincere in her apology,” Mrs. Tresidder said. “I have to take her at her word. We all know how it looks. It looks bad.”

However, she said of the organization’s explanation that it couldn’t recognize her: “I find it odd. The hospital is in my district. I’m not really a stranger to the Chamber” of Commerce, which helped organize the photo opportunity.

Mrs. Tresidder originally appeared over the left shoulder of Sarah V. Compo, Mrs. Ritchie’s spokeswoman. In the photograph that ran in the newsletter, Mrs. Tresidder is rather sloppily edited out. Her disembodied legs still remain in the photograph, specks of white appear on Ms. Compo’s shoulder and Mrs. Tresidder is replaced with a wall that is an unnatural brown color.

Ms. Gilpin phoned Mrs. Tresidder after the newsletter came out over the weekend to apologize. The original photograph that includes Mrs. Tresidder ran in area newspapers and on the organization’s Facebook page.

The Fulton Medical Center is an urgent-care facility run by Oswego Health. In April, it celebrated the end of remodeling.

“It’s a very nice facility now,” Mrs. Tresidder said.

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