Your post is quite compelling. However this subject involves 3 parties. I notice your argument is in support of contributors; and this is understandable being one. However our contribution is useless without the other 2 parties. Number one in business is to satisfy your customers. Once you ignore customer’s demand, they move to other places to get what they want. No business no one benefits. Marketers understand that. They are the ones that interact with customers. Over time they know exactly what customers what. They are able to say what is dead stock. Therefore to avoid substandard photos, contributors are helped to progressively improve. It is up to contributors to learn how to stay on top of their game.
Let us assume Adobe uses “machine” for reviews. Why not completing each or a batch of submissions within a day? Why 3 to 5 days? Why is it that when processing starts with a contributor depending on the number of photos period of several days is required? If software except photo viewers or editors is used for reviewing, why not programming such machines to complete the process and send auto-responders instead of human involvement. The machine would be programmed to look for specifics to a certain degree and would do so precisely, hence no need for human input.
Here’s another way to look at the subject. The standard is set by adobe who owns many editing software of which they know their capability. Individuals are trained to look for what is required. After many years of experience it gets easier to identify flaws in photos. The trained eyes see more details than the untrained eyes. The more practice you get the easier it becomes to identify errors. I said all the above to say this; it is human that does the reviewing. Adobe provides the instruction and the tools for us to review our own photos and make adjustments. It turns out Adobe is not the most strict, but might be the only one that gives you the opportunity to know what to correct. I don’t think perfectly noise-free photos are expected, however excessive noise is where emphasis might be based. Adobe stets the to determine at what point noise is excessive.
Adobe has been around for almost 4 decades. That is enough time to developing a network of clients that they’re familiar with. They are aware of what will sell, and what will not. There’s also the competition factor. Many people are in photo stock business. Astute marketer will identify something that gives the cutting edge over all others.
In all business quality is important. Each company fights to produce higher quality goods. As the quality standard of each new competition rises, customer’s expectation rises also. What was accepted 5 years ago becomes unacceptable today. And what is accepted today will become unacceptable 5 years from now. The reason newer digital cameras produces better photos lies with the progressive change of what is acceptable. The same holds true with the photo industry.
This is my observation. Some new contributors do not know post processing is required, or allowed. Many of the editing software used has very limited correcting uption that leaves excessive noise after application. Others use auto setting on their cameras, hence using high ISO many times. As for those who set a low ISO, but utilizes the camera’s features, there are applications that ignores the manual setting and uses high ISO where applicable based on how the camera was programmed. Editing software is there to correct camera errors. Therefore once you know your camera and use it accordingly, editing software will do the rest.
Adobe customers for the most part might be repeated customers. They become familiar with high quality photos; that’s what they will buy. Substandard photos most likely will not sell. Better quality photos move to the top of the search; substandard photos might never be seen.
There is the factor of convenience. Let’s say you need to hire someone to build a website. You have the choice between someone who download a set of noisy photo, and spend time to correct noise; a service that will be added to your bill, and another that download clean photos, with lower charge to you, who would you heir? Who would get most business?
“I would imagine than the majority of customers for Adobe Stock sourced images are likely to only be using them on the web and so are going to be low resolution and so any noise is going to be lost in downscaling it anyway.” Do you really believe this? If you do, make it a habit to look at the news slide when you open your browser, especially “edge”. Look at the quality photos, then rethink the forgoing statement. People buy what they see, what is not seen is unknown, hence will not make a difference. If I edit a horse, once it’s not looking unnatural, the customer knows nothing about what was lost, hence have no care.
As I said earlier, the information and many training tools are provided by adobe. It requires finding and utilizing. As you progress through these information, you’ll come to understand the standards more clearly.
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