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I've stopped  worrying about rejections at SS, but some of them are more funny than others. Here's one from today:



Reason:
Poor Lighting--Poor or uneven lighting, or shadows. White balance may be incorrect.

I have considered different ways of improving the lighting in the photo. Asking the sun to hide behind a cloud to give a cooler, more even light could be an alternative. I could also take my studio strobes up in balloons on each side of this yellow one, to get correct studio lighting and not the unreliable sunlight I've used for outdoor shots previously.

Since the WB "may be incorrect", painting the sky in the correct SS-blue, is probably also a good idea.

On the other hand: all of this might cost more than 30 cent, so I'm not sure if I'm going to do it   

Ah, but of course! Maybe the reviewer thought it was a photo of the sun. That explains uneven lighting, shadows and wrong WB as well...

proof to me that curves are worth of mastering them.  I could not though ... What is the best book or web link to learn curves ?

Hmmm... well, when I evaluate "correct white balance" I look at whether the whites in the image have color cast... might it be that the clouds in the original image are on the blue-ish side?

I think that there were just small problems with  levels on this photo , so the colors seamed like washed out a bit ,  but nothing that cant be solved in few seconds , even auto levels option gives you the result.

Its interesting that a simple black gradient set on soft light blending mode puts this nice  colorful photo into life especially on photos with sky like this one .

I just played with your photo for few minutes , I was messing with levels on the second one, and added a black gradient on the last one.

Hope you don't mind.

I agree.  Wow!  You really made that picture pop.  Just don't upload it to IS... 

May I?

IMHO, regarding the original v. the edited version: there is a blue color cast, the color picker reveals bluesh hue no matter where you look in the clouds, and I've never heard of ALL of clouds being blue because they are transparent... (I would agree that there might be a blueish strand at the edges of clouds... but not ALL of the clouds). In the edited version, this color cast is even more obvious, which really makes this image unsuitable for stock (to say nothing about the fact that now about half of the clouds is also overexposed)...

may I offer my take on color correction? richer colors, and a reduced blue-ness of clouds

I like the original picture the most. It is the most pleasant one for my eyes and from designers point of view it is the most usable (as it may be transformed into whatever I could need). In the same time I understand why that most colourful version could be of most interest to SS. It is their policy (and successfull one).

where are you guys getting brown clouds??

I like chasingmoments version best.  I agree it is important to not 'overdue' the editing, but correcting the colors is not overdueing anything.

I just wanted to point how contrast is affecting the photo , and those are just thumbnails so I think there is no need to be picky , is there a problem to add a layer mask a remove the problematic parts ?

I just wanted to say that buyers prefer clouds like that not that they look best , but don't take my word , just browse trough most popular landscapes photos on any site you like and you want find too much natural in them. 

Anyway here you go , clouds as the were on original photo ,  I even removed the noise so I dont get noise refusal. 

Please,how do you post pictures in the forum?

Ok, thanks, here is mine:

HEhehe... why don't you just isolate the balloon off the sky, the isolation will make a lot more money!! Adn you won't have to deal with clouds!