Apparently....

[terrybrooks]

8 out of 8 have technical issues
I wonder if the staff have quotas to fulill?
Constructive critiqe welcome BS like "there's too many of that already on there" isn't

[Marianne-Deiters]

Great photos! The first and the last one have a very shallow depth of field, so that the bird is also out of focus in some places. I would try again without these two pictures.

[Abambo]

Hi Marianne,

Refusals are individual per image. So there is a problem on each of the images.

[Test Screen Name]

I like your pictures. It's worth knowing that when they say technical issues

1. That's what they mean; there are different rejections for things like "Model release needed" or "We have too many of these".

2. Very high technical standards are expected from everything. Customers expect the best professsional standard, that can be used in a national advertising campaign or on the side of a bus.

3. No allowance is made for the interest of the subject or difficulty of capturing it. Some subjects will be impossible to capture to the required standards! Nature photography is particularly unforgiving.

4. I have seen no evidence of quotas.

This insight may or may not be welcome.

[kellye31834878]

Beautiful birds! I agree that the first and last one are out of focus (especially the last one). The others almost all have some noise in the background. The fifth one really has noise in the tail when you look at it 100%. Get rid of the noise and I think those will be fine.

[kellye31834878]

Just saw on the 7th one you have something weird on the tree in a couple places. Most of the tree is sharp and then it looks like something was smugged out or something.

[Nancy OShea · Accepted solution]

Ask yourself if and how you would use these in a million dollar ad campaign.

Examine all images at 100% magnification and you'll begin to see the technical problems.  And don't be defensive about rejection.  Rejection is not personal.  It's strictly business.

[terrybrooks]

I appreciate your feedback and comments but I'll disagree witht he "strictly business" part, It's strictly subjective and that can be proven by comparing images rejected to images accepted and seeing that there is not discernable pattern.

[Abambo · Accepted solution]

Sorry, but you are wrong. It's strictly business.

I just looked at the first image and I found at least 3 technical issues: Sharpening artefacts, noise and missing contrast. One of the issues would be sufficient to refuse the picture:

Look at the feathers and you will see sharpening artefacts, look at the eyes and you will see noise, as for the contrast look here:

The sharpening artefacts destroyed the image if you do not have the raw files.

 

[terrybrooks]

I'm beginning to think that stock imges are a mugs game, unless you happen to own shares in the agency

[Nancy OShea]

I don't agree.  But hey, why not submit the same images to Getty and Shutterstock and see what they say.

Good luck!

[Ricky336 · Accepted solution]

Hello Terry,

Well to give my few cents worth.

Having looked at one photo -baby robin - when enlarged, there are signs of noise. But other issues which tend to come under technical issue are white balance, contrast, saturation/vibrance etc. But you have read about these right?

So, bearing this in mind, what I see is this.

The robin photo as it stands is a bit flat. It needs more contrast and a bit more vibrance. You could also alter the tone curve a bit more giving it a slight S-shape. White balance also could be improved a bit. As the robin is on the grass, the grass has given a slight green cast to the photo - only a bit though, but for me noticeable. 

As an example you could try something like this:

You also need to tidy up the background, remove the blurred out grass - I removed it in this example.

However, these photos may fail on other reasons as well, like noise - artifacts.

Haven't looked at the others yet, but I think the issues would follow the same pattern. Contrast, vibrance, white balance.

[terrybrooks]

Thanks, I take the contrast point, though I think somewhere between the two would be better

[Abambo · Accepted solution]

There are no quotas on refusals. Think: Adobe wants a lot of high quality images in their database to sell a lot of images.

Technical issues always have technical explanations.

Quote: "there's too many of that already on there" The refusal reason for this is commercial appeal.

Quote:

Aesthetic or Commercial Appeal of Image

Thanks for giving us the chance to consider your image. Unfortunately, during our review we found that it doesn't have the aesthetic or commercial appeal we're looking for, so we can't accept it into our collection.

https://helpx.adobe.com/stock/contributor/help/reasons-for-content-rejection.html

[jacquelingphoto2017 · Accepted solution]

Hi Terrybrooks,

I like the composition of your files. However all files have multiple rejection reasons. In your case the moderator selects the one that is most obvious, "Technical Issue". All your images have white balance issue. They all have a blue cast (too cool).

DSC 2487 Color fringing and color noise

Out of focus - Too much of most of your images are out of focus. (DSCF7149). Any customer who wants to crop this image out of its background will not be able to do so.

Chromatic aberration - colors on the tail that should not be there.(DSCF6987)

Grain/noise issue - both color and luminance

All your files are excessively noisy, and all the subject are partly out of focus, some more than others. In my estimations if you use a photo editor to correct the noise, white balance and fringing of DSC2487, DSCF7178, DSCF6868 they might be considered for approval. However I would suggest you forget the others and move on. Too much of the others are out of focus.

Always check your file at between 100 and 200% magnification before submitting.

You may find the information at the following link beneficial since thy highlights the requirement in more details:

https://helpx.adobe.com/support/stock-contributor.html

https://helpx.adobe.com/stock/how-to/tips-stock-image-acceptance.html?set=stock--fundamentals--adobe...

https://helpx.adobe.com/stock/contributor/help/editing-dos-and-dont.html

https://incomepayout.blogspot.com/p/income-requirements-and-payout.html

Best wishes

JG

[terrybrooks]

I'm OK with proper constructive critiqie but yours is so flawed I don't know where to start

Like I've said before, rejections seem to be subjective then subsequently justified with "rules" applied as needed

I've got far far worse through, as for blue cast ???

Not only have I had worse accepted but there are others on there infinitely worse than ones' rejected (some of the moth images) as pointed out in a previous post

Sometimes I can learn from critique like with one or two above but your's seems nonsensical

[jacquelingphoto2017]

Hi Terrybrooks,

Please accept my apology for misunderstanding your purpose for having us going though eight rejected images. I sincerely thought you wanted to learn how to improve your file quality, and how to do your own checks, what to look for, and what to avoid so that you can get a higher rate of acceptance,. Please accept my apologies again. The moderators are not wrong about the decision made about your images. If for any reason any substandard images got through, they will either not sell or have very low sales rate. Therefore you can either choose to learn from us more experienced photographers with good acceptance rate, or you can continue being critical of us - moderators and all. The choice is yours to take.

Best wishes

JG

[terrybrooks]

Oh no, it sounds liek you're upset that your critiq was rejected, how ironic

[Nancy OShea]

@terrybrooks,

Your comments are uncalled for.  You owe jacquelingphoto an apology.

I can appreciate that you don't like rejection.  Nobody does. But we are unpaid forum volunteers and fellow product users, not reviewers.  Unfortunately, you've taken unfair advantage of our generosity and now crossed the line with insensitive & disrespectful remarks.  If you wish to behave like a troll, I invite you take it someplace else because there's no room for it in this community.  I am locking this discussion now. 

Goodbye & good luck.