Hi Everyone nice to meet you

[ZenDuder_]

I am a professional photographer and an experienced member at several [three other] photo contributor sites. I just recently joined adobe stock. I live in a remote location and mostly shoot nature.

So I have nikon gear, I shoot raw and usually just process with NK View software to produce the highest possible quality jpg. So I upload at full uncropped 6016x4000 resolution.

So here is my question. The first photo I uploaded to adobe was rejected for "lack of aesthetic or commercial appeal". Ok, so I can accept that as an opinion, but I have very similar photos of this same lily hanging in galleries sold andI have received some great comments and accolades so  I mean, it has commercial appeal to someone, just not to adobe and I don't understand why they don't at least want people to be able to see it and decide for themselves?

So the first specific question is are my photos being looked at by a computer or a person?

The final question is, what is it that adobe does not like about this photo, specifically because I am frankly at a loss thinking if they don't like this one, they won't like any of my photos. Thank you for assistance. Here is a reduced size of my adobe rejected photo she is called Suzie. The original file I uploaded is around 17mb, this one is 7. Thank you. Zen Duder.

[v.poth]

Hi Zen,

the first is, Fotolia/Adobe generally has slightly stricter acceptance criteria than other microstock agencies. The second point is, it doesn't matter if your picture is "liked" by the agency, but if it is technically correct and has sales potential.

What "Adobe" doesn't like is in short, what concerns your picture, too dark pictures with not enough sharp areas in the main object of the picture, I think.

Compare your picture with similar pictures already in the database, this will help you to see what is accepted and sold. A look at the supplier tips from Fotolia/Adobe could also help.

Greetz

v.poth

[ZenDuder_]

Hi V Poth thank you for your reply. I have been looking through this forum and have seen several other photographers posting photos which were rejected for "lack of aesthetic or commercial appeal" which in my professional opinion are also fine photos. It might not be my bag or my personal taste but respect as a photographer. So I am still at a loss. Maybe adobe has enough lillies? Maybe the reviewer doesn't like lillies? So. It does seem that adobe stock has moved from mere quality control into areas of personal taste or art appreciation which can be extremely subjective and might be better left to the potential buyer rather than the golden opinion of the censor.

[v.poth]

Hi again.....

You write that you're a professional photographer... Your picture doesn't speak for it, I think... And it's your personal opinion of what Adobe should accept or reject.

In your picture, the personal taste of a selector is certainly not important, but rather objective reasons for rejection, I mean.

Personal vanities and overestimation of one's own judgement are of no use if one wants to succeed in this business and move forward. This business has its own laws, which you have to know.

It doesn't help you in this respect that you think you know it better...You won´t get more pictures accept, nor you sell more pictures in this way..My opinion..

Greetz,

v.poth

[ZenDuder_]

believe it or not I am one of the few remaining who began their career shooting on film. Been using photoshop since the very first version. Looked at quite a few photos during those 40 years. Whatever. So I posted this same photo to 3 other contributor sites. It was accepted at all three. The only one which gives a feedback indication has a pulse of 85 which puts it into the popular category and generally speaking is very saleable and it has also been added to galleries. ZD

[rninov]

ZenDuder, do not overestimate the pulse. On most of the agencies it depend of so many factors not related to the image quality like view/like ratio, intervals between likes, time of the day, number of followers and so on....

[ZenDuder_ · Accepted solution]

ok in the goodwill spirit maybe hoping to help someone else out I am going to answer my own post now that I have a little more experience at Adobe Stock and have had approved images.

The first thing is that I believe AI [artificial intelligence] is checking the photo. I believe this because how else could adobe know what the contents of the photo are and what category it goes in automatically as soon as it's uploaded?  I didn't tell them. So I have spoken to some people who are well versed in this sort of thing and their opinion is that Adobe along with many other contributor sites are using computers to check photos because people just can't handle the volume and it is not very cost effective. Maybe it is possible that the final nod is given by a human but the AI algorithms can reject your photo based on a good or bad reason because AI is still not all that smart for this sort of thing. Specifically they are not that good with certain types of images, I am not sure about the in's and out's of what they do and don't like but I am getting a better idea from just trying different uploads.

So my solution has been to just keep uploading different kinds of photos to see what Adobe wants and what they don't want. If Adobe is listening I think you could improve contributor reactions / understanding by changing the reject message to something like "nice try but we just can't use that one at the moment" because Adobe will reject good salable photos so don't get hung up on that.