'Quality Issues' Feedback Request

[JustinSummers]

Hello,

I'm a new photographer, and I've submitted 45 images to both Shutterstock and Adobe over the past couple weeks. Of those, 38 were accepted by Shutterstock and 14 were accepted by Adobe, so I'm gathering that Adobe has higher standards.

That said, Adobe's feedback has me unsure what my quality issues are. Shutterstock said stuff like Artifacts, Focus, Noise, etc, but Quality Issues has me at a loss.

In this drive folder are all the pictures that were rejected in my last submission where something doesn't jump out at me as a potential rejection flaw. I'm sure they're not flawless, there's no way they're not  but where some pictures were like "Oh, huh yeah", these I'm not sure on. All of them were accepted on shutterstock.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1t6SIPvVvhYCNNlPmbTxIxk0p0wVLavmj

There are 13 photos in there, if someone would be willing to give general brutal constructive feedback on some or all of them, it would help me a lot but given the number I understand if that's too big an ask.

I'm attaching four photos directly The first two, StoneyPoint2 and 3, were pictures accepted by Adobe, the third, StoneyPoint1, was taken at the same place and time and that one was rejected. With something like this I'm not sure what quality issues could be present that were not also present for the first two. If there's anything specific that can be pointed at I would love to know because that would clear up a lot.

The fourth, ElRitoCreek, attached was one of my favorites of the rejected photos so if you only can give feedback on one picture I would be grateful if it was that one.

Thank you in advance for anybody who takes the time to review my pictures, and thank you for reading this wall of text.

[Jill_C]

StoneyPoint1.jpg Has a leaning horizon

ElRitoCreek.jpg - I don't see any glaring issues, but the ducks aren't in sharp focus,

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@JustinSummers wrote:

Hello,

I'm a new photographer, and I've submitted 45 images to both Shutterstock and Adobe over the past couple weeks. Of those, 38 were accepted by Shutterstock and 14 were accepted by Adobe, so I'm gathering that Adobe has higher standards.

That said, Adobe's feedback has me unsure what my quality issues are. Shutterstock said stuff like Artifacts, Focus, Noise, etc, but Quality Issues has me at a loss.

In this drive folder are all the pictures that were rejected in my last submission where something doesn't jump out at me as a potential rejection flaw. I'm sure they're not flawless, there's no way they're not  but where some pictures were like "Oh, huh yeah", these I'm not sure on. All of them were accepted on shutterstock.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1t6SIPvVvhYCNNlPmbTxIxk0p0wVLavmj

There are 13 photos in there, if someone would be willing to give general brutal constructive feedback on some or all of them, it would help me a lot but given the number I understand if that's too big an ask.

I'm attaching four photos directly The first two, StoneyPoint2 and 3, were pictures accepted by Adobe, the third, StoneyPoint1, was taken at the same place and time and that one was rejected. With something like this I'm not sure what quality issues could be present that were not also present for the first two. If there's anything specific that can be pointed at I would love to know because that would clear up a lot.

The fourth, ElRitoCreek, attached was one of my favorites of the rejected photos so if you only can give feedback on one picture I would be grateful if it was that one.

Thank you in advance for anybody who takes the time to review my pictures, and thank you for reading this wall of text.

---

[JustinSummers]

I'm not sure how I missed it but yeah I see the horizon now, it's definitely off. I think I can fix and resubmit that.

Ducks could be sharper, the adjacent grass seems sharper than the ducks, I probably need to bump up shutter speed more if there are animals then, even if they're not the subject. And/or maybe it's over-aggressive denoising, there are some weird bits in the water by the ducks I took for reflections that could be that maybe?

Thank you for responding, I appreciate the help!

[George_F]

I think the Stony Point photos were on the fence with some slight defects that are probably correctable.  

Like @Jill_C mentioned, horizon could use some straightening.  There appears to be some artefacts or texture of some sort to the sky that I can't put my finger on.  Is it possible the lens had some residue on it?  The histogram also indicated the whites were a bit low, I would up those to the edge of the histogram and bump the shadows a tad.  I think they would benefit from some sharpening and well.  Make sure to zoom in to 100% to check sharpness,.I noticed it mostly in the rocks.

Aside from the texture in the sky, I genuinely could see these 3 going either way.  I really like them and think the rejected one is worth resubmitting with corrections.

[JustinSummers]

The lens is clean I believe, I use zeiss wipes when I see stuff on the lens.

I denoised the images with DXO's AI, is that something that could potentially cause the texture issue you're seeing in the sky? I'm shooting with an R7 and kit lens, darktable doesn't have a noise profile for that incorporated yet and I thought DXO would do better, but I don't have the experience to notice if it's causing other problems. I notice there's a very thin blue blocky shape above the left side of the horizon in the leaning photo that is not present in the other stoney point photos.

My editing has been pretty minimal so far, just denoise, check exposure,  contrast, saturation pretty much.

[George_F]

I hadn't planned on reviewing the creek photo, but I did spot a few things when zoomed in:

The whites portion of histogram is missing information, but it looks like it would handle a whitepoint adjustment without trouble.  Even just using the auto adjustment button in Lightroom made a noticeable difference.  I also think some light sharpening would be beneficial.

When zoomed in I noticed some trash floating in the river and some green posts towards the left in the vegetation.  Perhaps the reviewers noticed these as well.

As I mentioned in the earlier post, these may be correctable and are worth submitting again with alterations.

[JustinSummers]

Does trash being present get in the way of commercial use? It would make sense but that does block off a lot of potential shots without bigger clean-up than I can manage alone, there's a depressing amount of litter in places like that park.

[George_F]

I don't think trash is very fitting for the scene, I would say yes that trash would be a potential refusal reason.

Depending on how it is placed in the photo, it should be fairly easy to clone out.

[Ricky336]

...That said, Adobe's feedback has me unsure what my quality issues are. Shutterstock said stuff like Artifacts, Focus, Noise, etc, but Quality Issues has me at a loss...

By @JustinSummers

Quality issues for Abode cover a whole range of issues, exposure, focus, artifacts, noise, and so on.

They no longer seem to separate each issue.

Have a read of this from Adobe about quality issues:

Reasons content is rejected at Adobe Stock

I think Shutterstock has a lower bar to meet!

[JustinSummers]

Shutterstock for sure seems less discerning!