I would never accuse you of a photo shop, BUT I clearly see the ball in your picture and it is well ahead of his hand. On tv, I distinctly remember the ball was barely or not visible, and it was well hidden by his hand. Now you have a photo with a nice light brown football and even its bright white stripe, in plain view.
This photo was pulled from Fox Sports ... remember, Ben was not backed away from the endzone before he hit the ground.
The ball may have crossed the plane. In fact, it probably did. However, when the ref made the ruling on the field there is no way that he called it for that reason. I believe he ruled a touchdown because he somehow got hoodwinked by Ben sneaking the ball over the line after the play was over. The mere fact that later replays validated the ruling on the field does not mean that the right call was made. If the line judge had spotted the ball on the 1 inch line, and the play was challenged by Pitt, there would not have been enough evidence to overturn the call. Because the video is indeterminate, whatever the ref called would have stood. I'm sorry, but there is no way that the ref could perceive the ball just barely breaking the plane for a split second when he made the call in real time (after a goodly delay). So, even if it was really a TD, the call on the field of a TD was still an improper call (if that makes sense).