A little surprised with the rejection of an entire 33-photo batch, all over "quality issues"

[rlemieszek]

So, I'm no stranger to having photos rejected for similarity to existent content or for intellectual property issues, but I've only ever had about 4 or 5 rejections over "quality issues".

Today I was taken aback after finding out an entire batch of 33 photos was rejected for that reason. It was a quick rejection too - 3 days, while I still have a batch in review from over one month ago.

I'm a little worried about proceeding with other uploads before I find out the reason behind this massive rejection, so I'd love some feedback on these. I'm attaching three photos that are more or less representative of the batch. Any input will be greatly appreciated.

Cheers.

[daniellei4510]

In general, they give the appearance of poor upscales. The details look "muddy," as if poorly focused or taken with a sub-quality lens. There may be other reasons for this that I'm missing, however. Here's an example of the muddy look and lack of detail I'm seeing throughout each of these.

[Jill_C]

DSC6853.jpg- I can't find anything in this photo in sharp focus. There's also a spot in the sky. It's probably a bird, but should have been removed.. 

DSC6831.jpg - some areas are blownout with no detail

DSC6787.jpg - some blownout areas in this one and a hand sticking into the frame on the left side...

[RALPH_L]

I also think focus is the main problem.

[Ricky336]

Hello,

Your photos are too yellow, so one of the reasons for the rejection would be the white balance.

Did you add some toning to these shots? If so, leave them as neutral as possible.

E.g

Try to reduce the highlights as well.

And:

You have to do some masking to balance out the exposure.

White balance:
https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/photography/discover/white-balance.html

[rlemieszek]

This is invaluable advice, thank you all. Come to think of it, I did edit this batch on the screen of a new 13" MacBook. I'll take another stab at it on a large screen and see what comes up.

[daniellei4510]

That can do it. Especially if it's a consumer-grade Mac, rather than a Pro. I once came close to giving a faulty review of someone's rejected image because I was viewing it on my 1st generation MacBook Air, where the image was mush on my MacBook's screen, but perfectly sharp on my desktop Mac. Same on my desktop set up, for that matter. I have my Mac's screen in the middle, and two old Acers on either side of it, one for dealing with emails and the other for streaming movies (which, admittedly, is sometimes why it takes me three hours to edit an image).

Anyway, like my old MacBook Air, the resolution of the Acers is far from adequate when it comes to displaying (and certainly editing) photographs. Screen resolution and brightness can make all the difference in the world.

[Nancy OShea]

Apart from lack of details, the color balance & saturation levels are off.

Adobe Stock customers expect the highest visual and technical quality for use in commercial projects.  Emphasis on commercial use. 

• https://helpx.adobe.com/stock/contributor/help/reasons-for-content-rejection.html
• https://helpx.adobe.com/stock/contributor/help/quality-and-technical-issues.html
• https://helpx.adobe.com/stock/contributor/user-guide.html/stock/contributor/help/photography-illustr...
• https://helpx.adobe.com/stock/how-to/tips-stock-image-acceptance.html
• https://helpx.adobe.com/stock/contributor/help/property-release.html

[rlemieszek]

So I just spent a good hour working these photos and I just there's just too many concurrent issues that do make this batch quite difficult to work with. I took them with a Nikon D7100 (APS-C) and a Nikkor 10-24mm, mostly at 10mm, so that's already suboptimal. It was cloudy, the water from the river was yellow-greenish and all the very white vapor meant I had to underexpose to avoid clipping highlights. So: shadows are already on the soft side considering my camera and lens, and they're underexposed. Once I bring them back up they're already kind of a mess. I did try "enhance" for noise on LR (I hadn't done that before) and it gets marginally better but not great. Then WB with that water, atmosphere and sky is really difficult... the most "natural" WB I get doesn't look at all natural because of the color of the water that day. So... yeah, I'll leave it be with a lesson learnt. Thanks for all input. If anyone wants to play with these for the sake of it I'm happy to provide the RAWs. 

[Jill_C]

I have a rule of thumb that if the edits to an image to make it acceptable to Adobe Stock will take more than just a few minutes, I won't bother. I usually just reduce highlights, lift the shadows, straighten, correct chromatic aberration, and remove some distractions such as power lines and garbage cans, sometimes people if it's easy to do. (The PS Remove Tool makes removals easy.) Considering that the majority of assets submitted to Adobe will never get licensed (my lifetime license rate is ~25% which is higher than most Contributors), I don't want to waste time on images that never get sold.

[rlemieszek]

Agreed, this is a good rule of thumb to have. In this case I'm not so worried about these photos in particular, just finding out exactly what made the entire batch be rejected. Thanks for your (and everyone else's) input!

[Abambo]

I normally take brackets so that I get the exposure just right. I select the picture out of the five that just looks best and I work on that one. You only need some storage for that.

Your lens is soft in the corners.

[Abambo]

6853: You need to lift up the shadows. The overall look is not sharp. The composition is bad: 

As an example: You need to edit out this construct, from the lower right corner.

For some people you would have required a model release. Even that they are quite small on the picture, I would guess, that some guys are recognizable:

This guy here is clearer than some others on search photos.