Skip to main content
Participant
July 18, 2026
Question

Photos rejection

  • July 18, 2026
  • 8 replies
  • 119 views

Hello,

 

I submitted photos to Adobe Stock, but most of them were rejected. I usually receive the following message: Thanks for giving us the chance to consider your image. Unfortunately, this image doesn't meet our quality standards, so we can’t accept it into our collection.

 

Did you face the same thing, please? What did you do? Could you recommend a free tool? Should I use the free/paid plan of ChatGPT? Thank you for helping me.

 

Best regards,

Osama

    8 replies

    Participant
    July 19, 2026

    Hello,

     

    I use the camera of my mobile phone. ​@Nancy OShea 

    Nancy OShea
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    July 19, 2026

    A small sensor, low-megapixel phone camera will never give you the same high-quality photos that you’ll be competing with in Stock. That’s not to say you can’t achieve decent results in ideal conditions, but it’s much more challenging. 

     

    If you’re serious about doing Stock photography, start saving for a new or used entry-level DSLR camera, lenses, and a tripod. Also enroll in some courses to learn camera & photography basics.

     

    Hope that helps.

     

    Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert
    jacquelingphoto2017
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    July 19, 2026

    Hi ​@Osama Hamdi 

    Most of us, if not all get that refusal note at some point or the other. It means there are quality issues that you need to look for, identify and make correction if they are correctable. First you must know what to look for. We can help you with that if you post three of the refused photos here. Otherwise, you need to zoom in at between 100 and 200% to look for sharpness, chromatic noise, noise grain, color fringing and halo. You will also need to check for correct exposure and white balance. Use any photo editor to correct the issues. A photo with focus issue cannot be corrected.

    Best wishes
    Jacquelin

    Nancy OShea
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    July 18, 2026

    Were these actual photos from a camera, or did you create them with GenAI?

     

    GenAI makes many mistakes. And it’s too stupid to know what mistakes it made to correct them.  

    Some photo errors can be corrected with tools in Lightroom or Photoshop; human talent & skills required. If the photo lacks much visual interest or commercial value, just discard it and move to the next one. 

     

    Read these requirements from your Contributor User Guide

    Hope that helps.

     

    Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert
    daniellei4510
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    July 18, 2026

    There is no tool, free or otherwise, that can help you correct for errors in an image and make them suitable for Adobe Stock. You can certainly use ChatGPT to critique your assets, but it will probably give you more information (sometimes false and misleading) than you need and will not be a substitute for a visual inspection with your own eyes (or ours, if you post an example). 

    Adobe Community Expert | If you aren't submitting your assets in sRGB, you probably didn't read the rules.
    Jill_C
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    July 18, 2026

    You don’t need to use a free tool to check your images. Just zoom in to at least 100% and inspect carefully, looking for focus, artifacts, noise and other issues that make the image unacceptable for commercial use. 

    Jill C., Forum Volunteer
    Abambo
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    July 18, 2026

    The refusal reason you were given is a generic text, we all have examples of that in our account. The text is boiler plate text, you should not assume, that it is targeted to your precise asset.

     

    Check the contributor’s manual for the requirements. You can use any tool you want,. if the quality they produce is good enough. Most pictures will require manual inspection and correction of errors.

    ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer
    daniellei4510
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    July 18, 2026

    To be of help, we recommend you post a couple of the rejected asses here. Note that there is a 5MB limit for uploads, so you may need to reduce the size of your assets, but do so to keep the file as large as possible while keeping to the 5MB limit.

    Adobe Community Expert | If you aren't submitting your assets in sRGB, you probably didn't read the rules.