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I've been an Adobe Stock contributor for 16 years and have over 3000 images here. Lately, however, Adobe seems to be "Technical Issues" rejection happy. I'm having nearly all of my submissions rejected. I very carefully examine all of my images in PS at 200% before submitting them. There are no technical issues.
Take the two images attached as an example. One was accepted, one rejected for Technical Issues. Which do you think was accepted and which rejected?
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Hello @scottbu , at 300% you can see that there are artifacts where the shadows meet the brighter areas.
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In which one... the one they accepted or the one they rejected? And by the way, which one is which?
I could point out about 500 of my images they have accepted that have worse "artifacts." The boundry between a bright sky and dark mountains will always contain artifacts. They are caused by jpg compression. It's the nature of the beast.
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In which one... the one they accepted or the one they rejected? And by the way, which one is which?
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We don't work for Adobe and thus have no idea what Adobe accepted or rejected. Only you have access to that information.
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That's exactly the point. I posted two images. Adobe accepted one and rejected one. Can anyone on this forum examine the images and tell me which one they think was accepted and which rejected, and why?
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Adobe accepted one and rejected one.
By @scottbu
Different moderators would be a good explanation. Or one moderator who did reject one of both because of these artefacts:
As a side note, both could have been rejected based on artefacts! Or on similar image submitted! You say that you could point out 500 images with worse artefacts. That's lucky for you. But as the vetting is done by humans and some images can tend one way or the other, you are playing “rouge and noir” here.
@Nancy OShea' right. As a moderator, I would be highly annoyed seeing sunrise after sunset after flower image. At some point, you are very fast with refusals, at the first sight of the first artefact you see…
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I suspect you're right... different moderators. Or the same moderator on different days depending on whether they had a fight with their spouse that morning.
Your example images are pure black. In any case, the artificats are cause by saving the image as a .jpg in PS. They don't exist in the .psd at 400%. This is probably exacerbated by having to reduce the image size significantly to get it under the 10MB limit for this forum.
If Adobe is rejecting images with the wrong reason code, they are not doing themselves or their contributor community any good.
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Your example images are pure black.
By @scottbu
That's your problem, you're not looking correctly, or your screen is off. My image is a screenshot of yours, and it's exactly not pure black. Check it again. And if you don't see red points, copy and paste it in Photoshop and amplify.
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"That's your problem, you're not looking correctly, or your screen is off." Seriously? I'm done.
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Seriously. I amplified the defects in Photoshop for you, but they are clearly visible on my screen, so they should be also on yours:
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I've been an Adobe Stock contributor for 16 years and have over 3000 images here.
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Congratulations. Well done! How often do you have your camera professionally cleaned & serviced?
I like your images a lot. They're very dramatic. That said, I know if I were a Stock Reviewer, I would be sick of seeing sunsets/sunrises. Although they can be very beautiful, the Stock library already contains millions and millions and millions of technically & visually perfect sunset clouds. No joke and no exaggeration. This is an immensely competitive category so your work really must be perfect to get accepted. And yes, the standards bar has risen as have camera technologies and the pool of contributor talent. Nothing stays the same.
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Hi, Nancy.
Generally every 3 years. I only shoot about 10,000 shots per year on average, so that seems to work well.
Thanks for the compliment on my sunset shots. I'm curious, though. If the problem is that there are too many sunset shots, why did they accept one and not the other one? And why reject it for "Technical Issues?" If my two images are too similar, why didn't they reject one for "Similar already submitted." And if they're sick of sunsets, why didn't the reject it for "Overabundant category?"
There are millions and millions of technically & visually perfect images of a woman wearing a headset in a call center smiling at you. Yet people still submit them by the hundreds per month, and the new ones that are also technically & visually perfect are accepted.
Not trying to be combative. It's just very frustrating when Adobe rejects images that I know to be of sufficient quality and interest that they should be accepted. In fact, Adobe accepted 5 very similar images to the one they rejected. All were taken with the same camera and settings within minutes of each other, and all processed in the same batch with the identical ACR settings. So there is no way that one image should be rejected for "Technical Issues." Can you tell which of the two I posted was rejected?
Meanwhile, Shutterstock and Dreamstime happily accepted all of my latest submission, while Adobe rejected 8 of 10 for "Technical Issues." Yes, I know they all have different criteria. This isn't my first rodeo.
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I can see that. None of us can read the reviewer's minds. We can only speculate. If I had to choose from the 2 images posted, I would select the top one for framing reasons, it adheres more to the "rule of thirds."
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Meanwhile, Shutterstock and Dreamstime happily accepted all of my latest submission, while Adobe rejected 8 of 10 for "Technical Issues." Yes, I know they all have different criteria. This isn't my first rodeo.
By @scottbu
Just out of curiosity: which one makes you more money?
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Currently, Adobe by a mile. But that's primarily because I have over 3000 images on Adobe and a few hundred on the others. I only recently started submitting to other royalty free stock agencies, primarily because Adobe has been rejecting so many for "Technical Reasons" that the others accept and sell. I got to the point where I felt I was wasting my time submitting to Adobe. But I'll keep the account open since I sell enough to get Photography Creative Cloud free every year.
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Well, I have about the same pictures in Shutterstock and Adobe and different ones sell, but Adobe gives me the most earnings. I should say, however, that I'm not a top seller, as my contribution is more for fun than anything else.