Am I on the right track??

[Sara273845934qa3]

Hello Everyone!

I am fresh brand new to the contributor scene as an amateur/ hobby photog. I love underwater shots and I am sitting on hard drives upon hard drives of photos that I took for fun and did nothing with. I uploaded a batch here and I got my first download and I am absolutely buzzing! My goal is to simply get free access to adobe platforms such as Light Room and Photo Shop to help fund my habit without breaking the bank. I have noticed that some of you offer really great critiques of work on the form and I was wondering if anyone was keen to have a look at my profile and see how I am doing in terms of material, key-wording, titles, etc. I am excited to upload more when I have time!

https://stock.adobe.com/contributor/211161003/Sara

[Jill_C]

Firstly, you mention wanting to get free access to LR and PS. I'm not sure how you're expecting Adobe Stock to help you in that endeavor. Perhaps you hope to generate enough sales per month to pay for the $10/mo subscription fee? For the past few years, Adobe has offered a Contributor Bonus of a free subscription if a certain level of submissions or sales was achieved; however that promotion seems to have ended and is not in place this year.

As to your portfolio, you have many pretty images. We can't really look into your key words, but I do think some of your titles could be expanded. For instance, a bunch just say "eagle ray" and the title of the last one is

"DCIM\100MEDIA\DJI_0630.JPG"

[Sara273845934qa3]

Hey Jill and thanks for getting back! I will edit my titles now. I heard from some other stock contributors that if 150 downloads from my account are completed in the course of a year that I will get free access to certain Adobe programs such as PS and LR but maybe I was mistaken. 

[Abambo]

Hey Jill and thanks for getting back! I will edit my titles now. I heard from some other stock contributors that if 150 downloads from my account are completed in the course of a year that I will get free access to certain Adobe programs such as PS and LR but maybe I was mistaken. 

By @Sara273845934qa3

That was last year (see here for the details: https://helpx.adobe.com/stock/contributor/help/royalty-details.html; scroll down to the bonus program). This year this has not been renewed.

You may need to invest time in titling and key wording (don't accept the Sensei keywords blindly, if they are not accurate), but with some luck and many assets, you may get a certain income. Underwater photography is not that common. At least it changes from the endless roses pictures.

With some of your accepted pictures, I would have expected a refusal, because of sensor spots that are not edited out:

You will also need to pay attention to logos and ship names. As for the rest: you include people, that's good.

I wish you much success. If you need help with refusals, feel free to post one or two pictures with the refusal reason for us to check.

If you are new to stock, you should consider these resources: https://helpx.adobe.com/stock/contributor/tutorials.html
Please read the contributor user manual for more information on Adobe stock contributions: https://helpx.adobe.com/stock/contributor/user-guide.html
See here for rejection reasons: https://helpx.adobe.com/stock/contributor/help/reasons-for-content-rejection.html
and especially quality and technical issues: https://helpx.adobe.com/stock/contributor/help/quality-and-technical-issues.html

[Jill_C]

The Contributor Bonus was not offered in 2022; perhaps it will be offered again some time in the future, but there's no way for us to know. You'll have to decide for yourself whether the effort you're putting into editing, keywording and uploading is worth the payback in terms of royalties earned. You do have something unique to offer, because on,y a small minority of photographers do underwater images.

[Nancy OShea]

Visually, very impressive.  Underwater shots can be massively tricky.  Really nice work!! 

[Phillip273825145ug4]

I agree with Nancy.

[jacquelingphoto2017]

Hi @Sara273845934qa3 ,

Your photos are nice.

On this forum we mainly assist to identify errors that cause rejections. Once your files are accepted they are deemed salable and have passed all the other criteria as mentioned in the Adobe Contributor Guidelines and here. Therefore you can have all confidence that your files are marketable. You can learn more about Captions and Keywording here

.

Best wishes

Jacquelin