Participating Frequently

Question

Photos Rejected

Forum|Forum|6 months ago
July 26, 2025
5 replies
1881 views

Hi Adobe Community,

All of my work was rejected based on quality standards and I wanted to get your feedback on why. Nothing specific was mentioned about my images, only general examples like exposure issues, soft focus, excessive filtering or artifacts/noise. My images are all well-exposed and developed and AI was not used. I did use PS compositing on some and that includes spotting for dust and artifacts, anywhere pixels were moved, no matter how slight. Several images were straight out of the camera with just exposure and dusting.

I'm disappointed because I thought it would be cool to see how other artists could use these fine art landscape and bird photos, and I anticipated this happening a lot! I love the open source feel to contributing art to stock houses and thought I'd try it on a temporary basis. I was even fixated about how to cancel my contributions to control the demand! I was mistaken.

I do have a lot of stock snapshots that I planned on uploading after my artwork, so maybe that's preferred. I thought art was allowed on As.

Can you give me your opinion?

Thanks so much,

Susan

Contributor critique

Nancy OShea

Community Expert

Adobe Stock is a global assets business, not an art gallery. Most customers come here in pursuit of ordinary objects that have high visual & technical quality for use in commercial projects -- print, digital & textile.

Before you submit, compare your work with current inventory to ensure that 1) Stock needs it and 2) yours is better than what Stock is selling now. This helps reduce refusals for "similar content" and "quality/technical issues."

As a customer, I look for good lighting & uncluttered compositions, clear focus & defined details, adequate color saturation & neutral white balance with ample room for added text. No fancy gimmicks or filter effects. If the project calls for blur or colorizing, I'll add that myself after purchase.

With Stock, less inventory is usually better for the Contributor. Everyone submits images of sunsets, clouds, pets and flowers, but very few people submit take-out food containers or EV car batteries. Stock isn't sexy. It's about giving customers what they want. So find a need & fill it.

Hope that helps.

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert

S

SUSANMERRELLAuthor

Participating Frequently

That's very helpful, Nancy. I'll make a note of your advice for content.

Thanks for your time.

Ricky336

Community Expert

These images could be fine in another context, but not for Adobe Stock!

Issues in this case—exposure, noise/grain, B&W...

S

SUSANMERRELLAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thanks Ricky. I'm getting the message. 🙂

Jill_C

Community Expert

There are multiple issues here: blur, noise and monochrome conversion

Jill C., Forum Volunteer

S

SUSANMERRELLAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thanks Jill. I'll be posting different images going forward.

Abambo

Community Expert

You should also check the exposure.

The histogram of WS_Great Sand and Clouds-Pano_44.9megs.jpg shows a strongly underexposed picture. You also have a high noise level in this picture.

The EXIF data shows that you may not have the correct camera for Adobe stock. As the camera is quite interesting, and expensive, it's a niche camera producing only black and white pictures. That may render your pictures unfit for Adobe stock.

I also checked your urban birds picture (Urban Birds_Civic Center Gulls98_44.6megs.jpg), which is out of focus and very noisy. Even as a colour picture, it would have earned a correct quality refusal:

The histogram also shows underexposure:

ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer

S

SUSANMERRELLAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thanks for analyzing my images, Abamabo. I really appreciate your time and expertise.

I'll look at some tutorials on balancing exposure. Why does the exposure have to be the middle of the road? Why can't darker images be available for compositing and generative fill? I did use infrared film for the bird photos so they appear to be out of focus, but they're not.

Thanks again for your professional feedback. This has been a learning experience!

Abambo

Community Expert

I'll look at some tutorials on balancing exposure. Why does the exposure have to be the middle of the road? Why can't darker images be available for compositing and generative fill?

By @SUSANMERRELL

Exposure needs to be correct, so that the buyer can modify them to what they need. For images that have an erronous exposure, you would have elements missing in the image that will meke recovery impossible. If you are producing art, you may do as you wish. But stock photography is about craft first. Imagine a seat, that is such that you can't sit on it. You would not be able to sell that as a furniture, but an art collector may be interested. We are selling furniture, that may or should look good, too.

ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer