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Participant
February 25, 2026
Question

What is wrong with this photo?

  • February 25, 2026
  • 11 replies
  • 327 views

I uploaded and submitted about 50 landscape photos. They were all rejected within a few minutes, with little explanation as to why (you know - the usual generic quality issue note).

Could you please tell me what I did wrong? I use Adobe Lightroom.

No problems on other platforms.

Thanks.

 

    11 replies

    Shan junai
    Participating Frequently
    March 5, 2026

    The best advice I can give as a fellow contributor is to never upload 50 images in a single batch. When you submit that many at once, any small, recurring technical issue in your Lightroom workflowsomething you might not even notice can trigger a mass rejection across the entire set.

    Instead, try to submit your files in smaller batches of 5 or 10. This allows you to "test the waters" and see how the reviewers react to your specific style and processing before you commit your entire gallery. If a small batch gets rejected, you can look for patterns—like chromatic aberration in the branches or noise in the sky gradients—and apply more careful corrections in Lightroom before trying again. This approach saves you the time of tagging dozens of photos only to have them all bounced for the same generic reason.

    jacquelingphoto2017
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    February 28, 2026

    Hi ​@Lucas Zone 

    The first picture seem over processed. It seems over-sharpened and over saturated. 

    The second picture seem to be without contrast and has chromatic noise.

     

    Best wishes

    Jacquelin

    Nancy OShea
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    February 27, 2026

    Adobe Customers are, for the most part, working professionals & experienced amateurs. They expect commercial quality assets for use in professional projects— magazine & billboard ads, TV commercials, product packaging, marketing materials and merchandise.

     

    Before you submit assets, compare your BEST work with similar Stock inventory.  As a customer, would you buy this?  What would you use it for?  Is yours as good or better than what Stock is selling?

     

    If Adobe seems overly picky about what they accept, it’s because their reputation depends on providing customers with the highest quality assets.

     

    Read your Contributor User Guide for more tips.  Start here:

    https://helpx.adobe.com/stock/contributor/help/quality-and-technical-issues.html

     

    Hope that helps.

     

    Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert
    February 27, 2026

    @Lucas Zone 
    consider using a tripod. 
    Even with a good camera phone. A tripdod / monopod helps stablize the phone.
    Some phones have Expert/ Raw photo option. With a RAW photo you have many more options.
     

    Cheers

    Nate

    amrphotos18
    Participant
    February 25, 2026

    Perfection has a price. The royalties that we contributors get are far from paying for perfection.

    I’m facing so many problems to get my images accepted. 10,30,50 cents, per download!!!! too much money!!! WWWOOOOOWWWW. You need to upload a real perfect photo to get that sh*t...

    ZALEZPHOTO
    Inspiring
    February 25, 2026

    Perhaps you’re having a mindset problem… How you look at stock photography will greatly increase your success or failure.

     Lets just say you are making $2400 per yr ($200 per month)

    You need to have $60,000 at 4% annual return in a treasury bond or CD. 

    Try setting realistic goals, and be consistent uploading assets, with experience you will get better and submit better work. And if you decide to also shoot short video clips, you will average $1 per download, and before you know it, you will see the rewards of your efforts.

    You must enjoy it, otherwise it will never work out for you, and your mindset will betray you.

    Anyone can change their mindset and get better.

    Good Luck!

     

    ZALEZPHOTO
    amrphotos18
    Participant
    March 1, 2026

    Or perhaps you, like so many others, allow yourselves to be exploited in the workplace. You buy into the idea of ​​working hard to earn a pittance of meager rewards. I measure my work by hours worked. How many hours do you dedicate to taking photos, editing them, charging your camera, buying lenses, hiring staff, etc.? For $1 per download? Any garbage is worth that dollar. If we respected ourselves and our work more, royalties would be higher, and the quality of many workers would be better too.

    Good luck you too.

    Jill_C
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    February 25, 2026

    The first image has very noticeable chromatic aberration. The second image is noisy and has a large lens spot in the sky.

    Jill C., Forum Volunteer
    ZALEZPHOTO
    Inspiring
    February 25, 2026

    Lucas, there’s no camera data available when I open the photo in Photoshop. did you only use Lightroom?

    The main reason for the rejection I see is that you over stretched the images beyond what they can handle.

    What is the process and steps you took? I don’t have a problem with the composition in these two photos, these are nice shots with great potential, but fact is that landscapes without special features, are really hard to sell.

    In order to help you more specifically more information is needed on what you did in editing. Hopefully you shot this in raw, and you can still improve the shots and get them accepted.

     

     

    ZALEZPHOTO
    Ricky336
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    February 25, 2026

    When uploading to this platform the photo is converted to WebP format; it strips all metadata information from the file. Therefore, it is not the original file as it was in the old platform. 

    daniellei4510
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    February 25, 2026

    We also don’t know what webp quality level is being used during the conversion. I saved a jpg at maximum quality and a webp at 50% quality and there was a noticeable difference in sharpness when I viewed one on top of the other while turning the jpg layer on and off.

    Adobe Community Expert | If you can't fix it, hide it; if you can't hide it, delete it.
    Ricky336
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    February 25, 2026

    Hello,

    Composition plays an important part in photography. In my view the tuff of grass in the bottom left corner should be removed—try not to cut the photo in half as in this shot the horizon does exactly that.

    Composition Adobe

    RALPH_L
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    February 25, 2026

    Looking at the beach photo what I see are noise in the sky, a spot in the sky and the dark shadows are without detail. Also, I believe landscapes should be in a landscape format. Such as 3:1.
    Here an example of your photo as I would see it to be sellable:
     

     

    yamato713108855
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    February 25, 2026

    Was this a photo taken with a smartphone?
    The image quality is very poor when enlarged to 100%.
    It looks more like a realistic oil painting than a photograph.