Inspiring

Question

Rejections and halted sales

Forum|Forum|10 months ago
May 16, 2025
5 replies
802 views

I started 5 months ago thinking of keeping my work exclusively with Adobe. I've uploaded almost 1500 shots, and the rejection percentage has dramatically increased in the last month with photos that have no issues whatsoever. Annoyed by this, I started uploading to Getty, where 80% of Adobe's rejections have been accepted. Now my sales here have virtually stopped... Has anyone experienced this? Am I been paranoid? Below are some of the photos rejected. Any coments will be appreciated

Troubleshooting

Ricky336

Community Expert

Hello,

Personally, I think it is good that Adobe is becoming even stricter. I'm afraid to say that the examples you posted, I think Adobe has justification.

For example, in this shot (0689), the exposure is unbalanced—you have made the sky too dark, so that it does not balance with the rest of the photo.

The middle ground and foreground are too light. The sky shouldn't be darker than the rest of the photo.

It is clear that you made the upper part of the photo darker; this has resulted in the exposure being unbalanced.

Composition could also be improved.

In my personal view, other stock sites are not so strict—Getty (iStock, which Getty bought) accepts almost anything. There are a lot of poor images on their website.

Composition and exposure are some of the things that can be improved on.

Exposure:
https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/photography/discover/exposure-in-photography.html
Composition:
https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/photography/discover/photo-composition.html

ZALEZPHOTOAuthor

Inspiring

Thanks Ricky, I understand what you mean about being strict, the thing is that I'm finding a lot of inconsistencies in the approval process, I've had photos that have been totally clean and accepted on the 4-5 submission... that is crazy, not to mention the unbelievable amount of time put into it.

Thanks again

ZALEZPHOTO

daniellei4510

Community Expert

Probably focus on the foreground leaves.

Adobe Community Expert | If you can't fix it, hide it; if you can't hide it, delete it.

ZALEZPHOTOAuthor

Inspiring

I appreciate your reply! But these are in the foreground, and I see a lot of beautiful images that have very shallow depth of field in the library that get accepted. I dont get it!

Thanks!

ZALEZPHOTO

Jill_C

Community Expert

I have also started uploading a few of my rejected images to Getty, and so far they have all been accepted. I haven't experienced any decline in my Adobe sales, but they haven't grown much either.

Jill C., Forum Volunteer

Abambo

Community Expert

I have also started uploading a few of my rejected images to Getty,

By @Jill_C

Rejected for identifiable issues? I have out of focus assets in Shutterstock, that earned a rightful refusal here.

ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer

Jill_C

Community Expert

Rejected for NO identifiable issues. Those rejected for "quality issues" have no discernible quality problems, and those rejected for "similars" have no similar images in the database.

Jill C., Forum Volunteer

Abambo

Community Expert

Having assets accepted in other stock databases does not mean that they get accepted here too, and vice versa.

0700 has exposure issues. I also think that it has been overprocessed. The picture looks like you have applied a lot of noise reduction, with considerable sharpening afterwards.

1423: that picture has at least IP issues:

ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer

C

coffeeman_L

Inspiring

Community experts will comment on the rejected photos.

Regarding sales, I am experiencing the same situation. Previously, I had an average of 6-7-8 sales per month, but in the last 1.5 months I have only had 2 sales.

I have no idea why.

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