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An image taken at Yosemite's famous Jeffrey Pine resembles Uncle Earl's photo [The spelling Earle is in KTVU's graphic]

The legal dispute between the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust and Rick Norsigian, the man who bought glass-plate negatives at a garage sale in Fresno 10 years ago and attempted to prove that they were the work of famed photographer Ansel Adams, has now been resolved out of court.

Details about the settlement are confidential, according to a joint statement received today, but no money appears to have exchanged hands. The legal costs of each side's litigation were absorbed by the individual parties.

The basic facts — the Adams Trust does not believe that the 65 images were taken by Adams, the Norsigian team believes in their authentication effort — remain open to interpretation. But the prints, priced from $7,500 to $1,500, cannot be sold with any association with the Adams' name, although they will remain available online with a disclaimer approved by the Adams Trust.

Tellingly, in a dispute that escalated into quite a bit of name-calling, the agreement calls for an end of "defamatory statements." As a result of a series of emails made public by Norsigian's legal team, University of Arizona's Center for Creative Photography, a research center that houses Adams' negatives and came out against the Norsigian authentication findings this past summer, after some pressure from Adams managing trustee Bill Turnage, had been added to the counterclaim filed by Norsigian. There is no mention of them in the settlement.

Here is the full text:

On August 23, 2010, The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust filed a civil complaint in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California against PRS Media Partners, LLC and Rick Norsigian. On December 28, 2010, Rick Norsigian and PRS Media Partners filed a Counterclaim against the Trust in the same court.

The parties deny the validity of the claims brought against them. PRS Media and Norsigian believe that sixty five glass plate negatives purchased by Rick Norsigian were created by Ansel Adams, and prepared a report they believe authenticated the Negatives as being created by Ansel Adams. The Trust disputes the conclusions of the report and that the Negatives were created by Ansel Adams.

The parties have now agreed to resolve these disputes and have entered into a confidential settlement agreement in which each side assumes its own costs and fees in connection with the claims. Under said agreement, Rick Norsigian and PRS Media agree to not use Ansel Adams' name or likeness or the ANSEL ADAMS trademark in connection with the sales, promotion or advertisement of negatives, prints, posters, or other merchandise based on negatives. Norsigian and PRS Media may continue to sell negatives, prints, posters and other merchandise associated with negatives, subject to a disclaimer approved by The Trust, and provided they do so in a manner consistent with state and federal law. Further, both parties have agreed not to make any defamatory statements about the other or unlawfully interfere in each other's businesses. As a result of the agreement, the parties today submitted a joint request asking the Court to dismiss the complaint and counterclaim without prejudice.