Help: Picture has exposure problems?

Question

I tried submitting this photo the other day, and It got rejected, despite it being one of the best shots out of my bunch. I could see an argument for one of the 2 following things:

1) The Sun highlight is too much.

2) The hillside is still too underexposed.

I personally think the way this picture is edited, it's great! There is just enough light on the hillside to have some detail, but still has a silhouette effect to it. As well, I didn't think the sun-spot was that large, I kind of liked the effect of it.

Can some other people shed some light on this?

joanH · Accepted Answer

Hi matts84798271, Your note indicates you know a bit about the rejection reasons. I believe you are right. While this is one of your excellent photographs, Adobe does not want over or underexposed photographs The reason seems to be the buyer requires a high-quality photograph without extremes in lighting or colors. We stock contributors take photographs to satisfy our idea of great photographs but Adobe follows the customer's needs and trends.

If you can make changes in the extreme highlights and underexposed areas and it looks good to you, then you can resubmit it and see if it is accepted.

Adobe has put together documents for stock contributors so that you can understand the stock demand and qualifications. Here are a few things to consider. Best regards, JH

Quality standards

For your images to have commercial value, we expect them to be:

Appropriately lit and exposed
Without visible noise or dust
Well-composed
Processed inconspicuously

For more information on what makes a quality image, see The review process and Create better photos for Adobe Stock with 7 tips for success.

matts84798271 · Answer

Thanks for the suggestions. I will re-submit this and see if they accept the revision.

There was a bit of room for me to reduce the highlights, so I reduced that to -30. I also increased the shadows by about another 20 points to +35, but otherwise I believe any more would introduce a bit of noise. Especially since I am planning on blowing this picture up on a canvas, I'm attempting to keep it as high quality as possible .

If this doesn't cut it, then I recognize I still have some room to improve in my photography skills. If this is the case, how would you properly expose this shot so you can get a (detailed) exposure of the hillside whilst retaining the general silhouette effect?

This picture was taken with a 22mm Lens on a Cannon Rebel T4i (crop frame) at ISO 100, 1/180 sec and f/16.

Quality standards

Quality standards

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