Why the photo was rejected?

[evgeniiao14645123]

Why the photo was rejected?

[Jill_C · Accepted solution]

Given the top-down view, the sandals should have been evenly focused, but they're not; the toe area has much softer focus. The middle buttons are blown out with no detail at all. And the cut-out from the original background is not well done. If you zoom in and inspect the edges you will see many missed areas...

[evgeniiao14645123]

Thanks for the comment. Indeed, I cannot use the wide angle now when shooting from above, as my lens has broken and half goes out. DOF is slightly less than usual in such shots. But I figured that a little soft focus is not important. The edges bother me. I use "Select and Mask" in Photoshop and get this result. But if I use a pen, then there is no problem with reception. But it takes a long time to highlight with a pen(

[Jill_C]

As Abambo has suggested, just shoot the objects on an appropriate background, and save yourself the time-consuming work of doing "select and mask" and all the tedious adjustments you have to do. I have an assortment of foam core boards in different colors and textures, as well as some seamless paper, which work great as backgrounds for photographing objects. 

[evgeniiao14645123]

I find it strange to hear advice about a suitable background. I used white hardboard (plastic background) and a flash on the white ceiling. Due to the flash, the buttons lost a little detail. I usually use a lightbox and a few flashes. But because of the angle and size, the lightbox was shooting on white hardboard.

[evgeniiao14645123]

It's a original photo. Only converted RAW->JPG

[Abambo · Accepted solution]

A nice analysis from @Jill_C . I could add some colour noise hereto.

Cutouts are difficult to get right for stock, I would avoid them. Photograph your objects directly with the needed background. And when you have such a great white background, there is no need to have more background than image.