How to properly label material if it's real photos but upscaled using AI

[Andry987]

Hello everyone. The other day, I found a lot of photos on my phone and decided to upload them to Adobe, but I noticed that some of them were smaller than the required size. I upscaled them twice using Topaz AI and submitted them for review, marking them as "photos." However, I recently read in a chat that if a photo is real but upscaled, it should be marked as AI. Is this true? Should I delete the photos, even though they are real? Or should I leave them as they are, and they’ll just get rejected? I’d really like them to be accepted as photos because friends told me that real photos sell better than AI-generated ones when marked as such.

[daniellei4510]

"However, I recently read in a chat that if a photo is real but upscaled, it should be marked as AI. Is this true?"

Not at all true.

[Andry987]

So, is there nothing wrong with upscaling a real photo using AI? and marked it as a real photo?

[daniellei4510]

I believe that's what I said. 🙂 Someone on chat is either misinformed or pulling your leg. 

[Nancy OShea]

Upscaling low resolution images can backfire spectacularly.  It's not typically recommended.

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

But since you already did it, you'll have to wait & see what the reviewers decide.

[oleschwander]

Out of topic - but I just saw this odd rule; Don’t: Add sunrays or flares. Can't be true ...

[daniellei4510]

It's true. Will such assets be accepted? They might be, if the moderator wasn't trained properly. But sometimes I think the rules aren't rules, but well intended suggestions. We've certainly seen many examples of similars that aren't supposed to be accepted. The point of that rule in particular is that the buyer might want to add such embellishments on their own if they see fit. 

[Jill_C]

Why do you think it can't be true? Sun flare, whether it's fake or real, often results in an image being rejected.

[oleschwander]

I thought sun flare was a quite common modification if the image is not editorial ...

[oleschwander]

Sun flare can elevate an ordinary image and makes it more marketable. I realize that 'illegal' images can slip through the moderation, but still, and this is only tiop of the iceberg: 

https://stock.adobe.com/search?k=woman+sun+flare&search_type=usertyped

[daniellei4510]

Well...to be picky...some of those are AI and the sun flare was added by the AI, not the photographer. And some are photographs where the sun flares appear naturally. The thread has been about adding sun flares with the use of software filters added after the fact.

[oleschwander]

Most of them are made in Photoshop or similar.

https://stock.adobe.com/dk/search?filters%5Bcontent_type%3Aphoto%5D=1&filters%5Bcontent_type%3Aillus...

[daniellei4510]

Possibly. As I said earlier, sometimes the "rules" seem more like suggestions, or at least there are moderators that feel that is the case.

[Nancy OShea]

If customers want to add filter effects to images after purchase, they can.  It's easy to add special effects from Photoshop, but it's not easy to remove them. 😉 

With Stock, less has more sales potential.

[oleschwander]

Right. Let the customers decide.

[Jill_C]

If your camera sensor is so small that the images don't meet the minimum size requirement in Adobe Stock, they're unlikely to be accepted, and as @Nancy OShea   said, upscaling isn't all that useful on small images. If it's a real photo, it can still be uploaded as a photograph, unless you have used editing tools to add some element that wasn't there in the original image. Then it does have to be declared as AI.

[RALPH_L]

I often upscale photos with Topaz Photo AI that I have cropped down really small. Topaz does a good job and the acceptance rate remains high.