"Quality Issues" - Confused by Reason for this Image

[tylerw4749593]

I've randomly had a few images in the past rejected for quality issues. It would be nice if Adobe was more specific like Shutterstock or Alamy are. But usually I can look at the image and go, ok I guess they didn't like [reason]. Even when the same image is accepted by other stock sites (just like sometimes Adobe accepts stuff that one of the other sites reject). But I just uploaded a batch of about 40 images and one was rejected two days later while the rest still haven't been evaluated. I really can't figure out any reason this particular image should have been rejected so I wanted to see what I'm missing or if I should re-submit it as it was some kind of QA fluke. 

[daniellei4510]

It's overexposed.

No, Adobe will not go into detail why an asset was rejected. That's why they put this forum here. Why depend on one Shutterstock or Alamy moderator to tell you what's wrong when half a dozen of us here can give you half a dozen different reasons. 🙂

[tylerw4749593]

Thanks for the response, but I disagree with it being "overexposed" if anything it would be underexposed. There are only a few crushed shadows in some dark areas but not a single point is clipped. Here's the histogram: 

[daniellei4510]

My bac. Underexposed. It's late. I lowered the exposure and increased the contrast just a tad is the point.

[tylerw4749593]

Sorry to belabor the point but if you agree its underexposed why did you lower the exposure further. The one you uploaded definitely is underexposed now, but the original as I showed from the histogram was far from overexposed. The majority of it was in the lower half of the histogram and none of it was clipped. 

[daniellei4510]

All I can say is, it's been along day of  multi-tasking and the example I submitted is, in my opinion, is an improvement over the asset you submitted, regardless of terms. The birch trees need to be darkened to bring out details, and your greens need to be greener. Bottom line, it's an excellent photograph that needs some global exposure adjustments.

[Jill_C]

Some of the eagle's head feathers are overexposed - possibly blownout. If you can fix the quality issues in your rejected images, they can be resubmitted.

[tylerw4749593]

Thanks Jill, I suppose that must be it. Seems super nitpicky on an image like this where it's more a habitat shot instead of a portrait of the eagle, but it looks like dropping the highlights another -13 (they were already at -100 on an image I intentionally underexposed a stop) gets them under the limit of clipping on the histogram. The whims of a moderator I suppose. 

[Jill_C]

I don't think it is a whim. They may very well be reviewing images by looking at a histogram, or maybe because they review a few thousand images a day they can tell at a glance....

[tylerw4749593]

Perhaps it's a different environment than most photos uploaded to stock sites but as a wildlife photographer, I regularly deal with extreme dynamic range situations. I've got dozens of images accepted and many that have sold well that have larger areas that have some clipped highlights. For example, I was taking photos of toucans last week and the reflectivity of their beak meant that even in morning light well before it got truly harshly sunny I would have to shoot at -2.7 to avoid clipping the top of their beaks. But at that point, I was crushing so many dark areas on their black body feathers that I had to choose one or the other so shot at about -1.3 And some of those photos and videos are my best sellers. Meanwhile, another commenter posted a "fixed" version but IMO it's one that is technically correct (in that the histogram is within bounds) but looks way too dark as an overall image to an actual human eye. 

[daniellei4510]

OK, how about we meet in the middle then. Yours is overexposed, my example was too dark. Here's another.

[daniellei4510]

Ugh. I need to go to bed. Forgot to add the image.

[tylerw4749593]

This does look great/better. Thanks for the help. 

[daniellei4510]

Whew. You're welcome. 🙂

[Ricky336]

Hello,

It's because of the eagle's feathers on the head - most probably:

What I would do, if you can is to do some masking -though it may depend on your software application - but in Lightroom Classic or Adobe Photoshop, you can mask the eagle and bring down the highlights. I would also crop a bit, so the eagle is not lost among the trees.

[Abambo]

I've randomly had a few images in the past rejected for quality issues. It would be nice if Adobe was more specific like Shutterstock or Alamy are.

By @tylerw4749593

Writing extensive critics takes time, and time is what moderators don't have. They look at an image and refuse at the first error they see with a generic refusal reason. With photos they are quite good and refusals most of the time make sense. From time to time, you scratch your head and do some guesses, but very often the error is obvious to the trained eye. With Shutterstock I rarely have refusals, even on bad assets. With Alamy I have a 100% success rate. Only Adobe stock refused some of those pictures for reason.

BTW: Stock photography is very specific. A refusal does not mean that it is a bad picture, it just means that it is not fit for stock. If you really can't figure out why an image has been refused, it is probably best to move on. 

From time to time I resubmit a refused asset with minor corrections. Sometimes they pass.

[tylerw4749593]

True, I supposed I meant more like Shutterstock that at least gives a vague reason with some tags. Stuff like jpeg artefacts. 

[Jill_C]

The problem is that many images have numerous issues, but it takes only one issue to make it rejectable. Frequent contributors in this forum often spend 5 or 10 minutes or even longer downloading images for feedback, checking them in the histogram, highlighting the issues, re-uploading to the forum and typing a response. If we were Moderators, we would be fired after the first day because our productivity would be way too low. Adobe Moderators probably spend 5-15 seconds per image zooming in and inspecting before they press the accept or reject button. And even with this pressure on Moderator productivity, many of us are waiting 2-3 months or longer for our assets to be reviewed. Adobe would have to hire a massive additional army of Moderators to provide detailed feedback, and that's just not financially justifiable.

[tylerw4749593]

Makes sense, just I was also slightly baffled by the fact that I submitted 33 images in one go (although the page kept bugging out and I was having to submit them one by one) and this one was rejected almost immediately while the rest are still sitting in review. 

[daniellei4510]

My record is submitting one asset, having it accepted, and having it sold in under 4 minutes. Go figure.

[Jill_C]

The old "first-in/first-out" rule no longer applies. When it comes to selecting assets for review, I have this visual of the Moderators fishing around in a deep basket and grabbing something out of it to review - kind of like when you're looking in your sock drawer for a matching pair...

[daniellei4510]

That sounds about right. 🙂 I think I've mentioned before that my animal and food images sit on the back burner much longer than my portrait/fashion work.

[Abambo]

The old "first-in/first-out" rule no longer applies. When it comes to selecting assets for review, I have this visual of the Moderators fishing around in a deep basket and grabbing something out of it to review - kind of like when you're looking in your sock drawer for a matching pair...

By @Jill_C

My visual is more like Chaplin in "Modern Times" when he starts getting crazy. https://youtu.be/6n9ESFJTnHs?si=Z020cupJmIFnGFsZ

[Abambo]

Even that will slow down the moderation process. When I started with stock, I got much more precise feedback, like "noise", "out of focus", "exposure". That's all groupped now under "quality and technical issues".