Participant

Question

Abstract grunge artwork rejected for technical quality / artifacts

Forum|Forum|17 hours ago
October 1, 2026
10 replies
82 views

Hi everyone,
My abstract expressionism artwork was recently rejected by Adobe Stock. The reason given was the standard template for technical quality (artifacts, noise, or excessive filtering).
Here is my technical workflow: The piece is a digital mixed media artwork with heavy industrial grunge textures and manual scratches. I upscaled the image using Upscayl 2.15.0 with the High Fidelity model. After that, I applied the Unsharp Mask filter in Photoshop CS3 to enhance the texture motifs. The final JPG file size is safely under 45MB.
I suspect the combination of AI upscaling and Unsharp Mask created pixel artifacts that triggered the automated rejection, but I am not entirely sure how to fix it without losing the sharp texture details.
I have attached the artwork below (both full view and 100% zoom crop). I would highly appreciate any honest critique and technical advice from senior contributors on how to clean up the pixels for a successful re-submission. Thank you!

Nancy OShea

Community Expert

@Optimistic_view3e1e

Quality is only part of it. I’m afraid you’re too late to this party. There are close to a half-billion abstracts, wallpapers & backgrounds available on Stock. And countless more on free websites. With so much competing inventory, you won’t get any views or buyers for these.

https://stock.adobe.com/search?k=abstract 140 million
https://stock.adobe.com/search?k=wallpapers 67 million
https://stock.adobe.com/search?k=backgrounds 284 million

Best advice: cut these up and use them in collages or other representational art projects. Create, don’t imitate.

Stock customers need commercial-ready content to use in professional projects for print (posters, product packaging), digital media (movies, TV) and merchandise (t-shirts, tote bags, coffee mugs).

Good luck.

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert

K

Katalin Digital Art

Participant

Hello! I have a similar problem. I used Files Editor to improve quality and upscale the image.The image size is 3000x4000 and the format is JPG. Unfortunately, the feedback regarding the issue is not clear.

yamato713108855

Community Expert

If you wish to ask about the reason for the refusal, please create a new thread.
It becomes confusing as to whose topic is being discussed.

K

Katalin Digital Art

Participant

OK. Sorry!😌

daniellei4510

Community Expert

A search for “abstract textures” yields nearly 70 million results. Even if accepted, it is unlikely they would appear on the first 1 to 5 pages of results, which is where most buyers find what they are looking for. The competition for this type of work is simply strong.

Adobe Community Expert | I have miles to go before I sleep, but I'm all done on this end.

RALPH_L

Community Expert

Works like these are hard to get accepted. Often they appear to have artifacts even though that is not always the case. Here, the biggest problem are your signatures. That is not allowed.

O

Optimistic_view3e1eAuthor

Participant

Hi Ralph,
Thank you so much for your valuable feedback and for taking the time to review my artwork. I completely understand now about the signature rule—I didn't realize that personal initials like "HK '26" were strictly prohibited in commercial stock assets.
I will definitely remove the signatures from all of my files in Photoshop and clean up the textures using a softer sharpening method to avoid any false AI artifact triggers.
Your advice saved me a lot of time and guesswork. I really appreciate your help!

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