Author Topic: Update on Similar Refusals (Read 1855 times)

zeljkok · « **Reply #25 on:** May 05, 2025, 16:24 »

Quote from: cobalt on May 05, 2025, 15:21

So keep complaining, nothing about these abrupt roulette reviews is normal.

I don't always agree with you, but "roulette reviews" is perfect analogy. +100

zeljkok · « **Reply #26 on:** May 05, 2025, 16:26 »

Quote from: WendyT on May 05, 2025, 16:07

I think we have all been hit with the "similar" rejections lately. For many of us it is obvious that it has not been compared to images in our own portfolios, so it must be comparing to the larger collection. If this is the way things are going then anything new will always be rejected for similar as there are so many images of just about every topic on Adobe. I dont see how this will keep the collection "fresh".

Agreed. In addition, you submit again and it gets accepted. Happened to me.
I worked in software 25+ years and total lack of logic or consistency points to half-baked algorithms that are tested on live portfolios and mutating as we speak

cobalt · « **Reply #27 on:** May 05, 2025, 16:47 »

Just look at the discord. All those experienced producers with a few hopeful newbies mixed in and nobody understands what is happening.

Also no longer any leadership or inspiration from Adobestaff, the community has been abandoned.

I do daily searches for newest and the quality and variety of what is coming ooks really bad. The worst search is looking at fresh people content.

How long until customers change their stock plans? I would think a mix of istock/getty and Dreamstime might slowly be a better combination than just Adobe.

Then there are the lousy kw results. A search for people by newest gives you tons food, jewelry, isolated objects, close up of perfumes and no people.

it looks like a combo of maybe 50% people and 50% random stuff.

And the people, especially ai people, have very little variety in style. This much better several weeks ago.

I do see less clustered series, but this could have been easily solved by an algo that recognises someone has uploaded a rge series, but instead random declines, just spaces out the acceptance over a longer time frame.

The whole thing is sad.

eta

This is the search for newest on istock with the kw people

https://www.istockphoto.com/de/search/2/image-film?phrase=people&sort=newest

This is the same search on Adobe

https://stock.adobe.com/de/search?filters%5Bcontent_type%3Aphoto%5D=1&filters%5Bcontent_type%3Aillustration%5D=1&filters%5Bcontent_type%3Azip_vector%5D=1&filters%5Bcontent_type%3Avideo%5D=1&filters%5Bcontent_type%3Atemplate%5D=1&filters%5Bcontent_type%3A3d%5D=1&filters%5Bcontent_type%3Aaudio%5D=0&filters%5Binclude_stock_enterprise%5D=0&filters%5Bis_editorial%5D=0&filters%5Bfree_collection%5D=0&filters%5Bcontent_type%3Aimage%5D=1&k=people&order=creation&search_page=1&get_facets=0

If I was in sales on istock, my life would be easy.

A few weeks ago they had much better mix, also especially with ai people.

The abstract illustrations are nice, but half the content is not people.

f8 · « **Reply #28 on:** May 05, 2025, 18:46 »

My take on this whole Adobe fiasco is this...

- Adobe as well as each and every agency has way more content than any of them need on each and every subject.
- Most buyers could search for whatever topic on each and every site and find what they want within the first few pages.
- Nobody is producing anything that is new and exciting. Pretty much every subject has been done to death.
- Editors are a thing of the past replaced by inspectors reviewing more content than time allows.
- Contributors submit more content than is needed.
- Each and everyone of us could have our portfolio removed from each and every site without even a blink of the eye to the site.
- Rejecting content is a personal event, but has no meaning at all for any site.
- There is no community. Only hired staff who are directed to reply in accordance to company policy. The are not your friend.
- Storage space for the kazillions of repetitive imagery costs money. The less data center storage the better for the corporation.
- Almost every agency is corporate and have their profits and/or shareholder profits as the priority, not yours.
- Long gone are the days of 'agency partnership'. All sites are simply a platform to sell your work, nothing more, nothing less.
- I am not special, you are not special, we are not special.
- Complaining does absolutely nothing. We need their platform more than they need our individual work tenfold.

I am aware this sounds to be a buzzkill but the truth is more often than not a bitter pill to swallow.

I have been shooting stock very successfully for 40+ years now, I have seen the changes in the industry at every level, and I can say with all honesty I still shoot stock on an incidental level. I would not start my car, drive for 5 minutes, pay $1 or parking to shoot an image to come home and edit with the equipment I require and the time it takes to make anywhere from $0.02 to a whopping $0.98 as anyone with half a brain can see this is not a money making sustainable business anymore.

I submit quality images from the best equipment and they all get rejected for similar or quality. My wife shoots from the same location on her phone and they all get accepted. I think the question we all need to ask, is stock even worth shooting anymore?

It pisses me off the whole roulette version of a once amazing business as the logic defies me. Thankfully I still make a decent passive income from many years of work, but I am now so emotionally detached from what I do in part because of the never-ending roulette of senseless rejections in addition to the pitiful royalty rates offered by any site. I simply move on with my day and don't worry about it. All the angst and/or time spent trying to figure out the rejection and/or effort to resubmit is not worth my time or the extra dime I might make simply because an algorithm determines this.

cobalt · « **Reply #29 on:** May 05, 2025, 23:33 »

Everybody has to draw their own conclusions.

Stock needs to be refreshed every year. New trends in visual styles, colors, technology, food trends.

New trends in social themes and changes in society.

If I put my buyers hat on, I would be desperate for much more variety and content.

Agencies provide "streams" of fresh content, not an absolute number of content.

it is about a dynamic marketplace that is self organizing.

Creators, at least those that succeed, are tiny entrepreneurs that learn a great deal about their target customer group.

They provide a lot more detailed content than macrostock editors could ever think off.

A gigantic volume of content is missing, especially anything localized.

Agencies only have 1 billion images and still less than 60 million videos.

That is nothing.

How many professions exist around the world? How many detailed processes are done in these professions? How much has been systematically documented or produced for stock?

Even just a theme like soups of the world? How many are missing? And how many complete recipes have been produced step by step including videos?

The more you dig into collections, the more you see how mich is missing.

Maybe sunsets, flowers have too many duplicates but even just handshakes have a crazy amount missing.

With my buyers eyes, the agencies are empty, especially when it comes to systematic story telling.

But...to each their own...if you cannot see the unbelievably large amount missing, then moving on is probably the best you can do.

However the Adobe roulette algo declines are a crazy outlier that makes no sense. But it is good for getty and the coming merger, adobe will certainly lose clients over this.

Stock agencies are empty for me. I wish I had more time to create more.

eta

And agencies are part of the overall creative community. It is all about humans.

All the customers are humans, no ai bots buying content. The creators, even those creating with ai are humans, the agencies have a human sales team, human editors, human marketing people.

It is all about human needs. Robots don't need stock photos.

Having a great community vibe and support is good for business.

Look at what happened to SS after they closed their forums and gave a big FU to all creators.

No matter how many agencies they tried to buy, the content kept running away after their takeovers and the buyers left.

Because the uploadstreams determine were the clients go. Nobody will pay for a stock subscription to a place that treats them badly, because producers and buyers are the same community.

Injustice for all · « **Reply #30 on:** **Yesterday** at 03:37 »

Quote from: cobalt on May 05, 2025, 15:21

The very abrupt change to random ai reviews is a very serious problem and I have never seen anything like it in 20 years of doing stock.

So complaining about abrupt changes with no real communication or feedback is perfectly sensible.

Also the only way to make them understand that we are displeased and this is not an acceptable situation.

So keep complaining, nothing about these abrupt roulette reviews is normal.

I disagree with the "random review".

based on my experience,with these new review,I see a logic in it.

for example,i sent 4 images last week of the same concept with different subjects,so 4 images different enough that could be accepted,but only 2 were accepted.

then i sent another different image with another concept,and it was accepted,when I then tried to send another completely different image but still with the same concept as the previous image it was rejected.

so,at least from my experience,there is a logic to all this,I don't see these "random" review.

If multiple images representing the same concept are submitted,even if with completely different subjects and compositions,only some of them will be accepted.

anyway,as I said,it's a bit heavy,no one says otherwise,especially for me,or for those like me,who spends an hour or even 2 just to produce an AI image,because I dedicate time to generative fill and many other things in post production.

but the fact that it is hard to have these rejections,does not mean that there is no logic behind it.

then if you ask me if in my opinion it is still possible to do a business only with images,I answer no.

DiscreetDuck · « **Reply #31 on:** **Yesterday** at 05:19 »

Quote from: f8 on May 05, 2025, 18:46

My take on this whole Adobe fiasco is this...

- Adobe as well as each and every agency has way more content than any of them need on each and every subject.
- Most buyers could search for whatever topic on each and every site and find what they want within the first few pages.
- Nobody is producing anything that is new and exciting. Pretty much every subject has been done to death.
- Editors are a thing of the past replaced by inspectors reviewing more content than time allows.
- Contributors submit more content than is needed.
- Each and everyone of us could have our portfolio removed from each and every site without even a blink of the eye to the site.
- Rejecting content is a personal event, but has no meaning at all for any site.
- There is no community. Only hired staff who are directed to reply in accordance to company policy. The are not your friend.
- Storage space for the kazillions of repetitive imagery costs money. The less data center storage the better for the corporation.
- Almost every agency is corporate and have their profits and/or shareholder profits as the priority, not yours.
- Long gone are the days of 'agency partnership'. All sites are simply a platform to sell your work, nothing more, nothing less.
- I am not special, you are not special, we are not special.
- Complaining does absolutely nothing. We need their platform more than they need our individual work tenfold.

I am aware this sounds to be a buzzkill but the truth is more often than not a bitter pill to swallow.

I have been shooting stock very successfully for 40+ years now, I have seen the changes in the industry at every level, and I can say with all honesty I still shoot stock on an incidental level. I would not start my car, drive for 5 minutes, pay $1 or parking to shoot an image to come home and edit with the equipment I require and the time it takes to make anywhere from $0.02 to a whopping $0.98 as anyone with half a brain can see this is not a money making sustainable business anymore.

I submit quality images from the best equipment and they all get rejected for similar or quality. My wife shoots from the same location on her phone and they all get accepted. I think the question we all need to ask, is stock even worth shooting anymore?

It pisses me off the whole roulette version of a once amazing business as the logic defies me. Thankfully I still make a decent passive income from many years of work, but I am now so emotionally detached from what I do in part because of the never-ending roulette of senseless rejections in addition to the pitiful royalty rates offered by any site. I simply move on with my day and don't worry about it. All the angst and/or time spent trying to figure out the rejection and/or effort to resubmit is not worth my time or the extra dime I might make simply because an algorithm determines this.

A very good analysis, which I fully agree with.
One could add:
- unfair competition from human AI generators,
- the theft of bestsellers and the abject behavior of the agencies that sell them and collect their cuts,
- productions that required skill, work, time, and money are no longer appreciated at their true value by either individuals or professionals,
- the most exceptional productions can no longer emerge from the crowd.

We are now subject to the insane decisions of machines, and the only way to solve the problem is to no longer send anything in stock to Adobe.

trek · « **Reply #32 on:** **Yesterday** at 11:19 »

Local business are buyers of my local travel, aerial and landscape photos. I've found prints of my work hanging at local business including a car dealership, assisted living facility, and restaurants (plus many web sites). The buyers clearly search by geography and subject. My landscapes and aerials of Ventura County California maybe similar to my Orange County California photos but the customer groups and their searches are very different. Adobe seems to be missing this.

Injustice for all · « **Reply #33 on:** **Yesterday** at 11:42 »

Quote from: DiscreetDuck on Yesterday at 05:19

the only way to solve the problem is to no longer send anything in stock to Adobe.

and do you think Adobe didn't think about this?I don't even rule out this possibility.

It seems obvious to me that when they decided to change the review,they took this into account too,and maybe it's also one of the target...who knows?

and maybe they are right because we have become really too many,everyone now wants to earn with microstock,and more and more continue to arrive...

I obviously don't know,but I'm pretty sure they took this into account too.

zeljkok · « **Reply #34 on:** **Yesterday** at 11:45 »

In standard "C" programming language there is rand() function - returns random number in a given range.
However ridiculous it might sound, Adobe reviews might boil down to that.

1) Initialize system by pre-determined number of assets they decide to review on a given day
2) Pull out random assets from queue, up to this pre-determined number ("roulette")
3) Have AI run through an asset; if it finds something in histogram it doesn't like - "quality reasons". Up to this point nothing has been seen by human

4. Rest that passed this sequence ends up in human reviewer basket and likely gets accepted

Injustice for all · « **Reply #35 on:** **Yesterday** at 12:11 »

I,on the other hand,think that there is absolutely nothing random about Adobe.

everything goes exactly the way it's supposed to.

this is my opinion.

DiscreetDuck · « **Reply #36 on:** **Yesterday** at 12:12 »

Quote from: Injustice for all on Yesterday at 11:42

Quote from: DiscreetDuck on Yesterday at 05:19
the only way to solve the problem is to no longer send anything in stock to Adobe.
and do you think Adobe didn't think about this?I don't even rule out this possibility.
It seems obvious to me that when they decided to change the review,they took this into account too,and maybe it's also one of the target...who knows?
and maybe they are right because we have become really too many,everyone now wants to earn with microstock,and more and more continue to arrive...
I obviously don't know,but I'm pretty sure they took this into account too.

They're actually missing their target and will have to change their strategy before it's too late. Because other agencies are doing something else. Customers are still human, no matter what Adobe decides.

angelacat · « **Reply #37 on:** **Yesterday** at 13:34 »

Is this related to drop in sales - things haven't really improved for me even though I'm not getting many rejections, not uploading many photos anyway.

Or is the drop in sales just me?

Thanks

zeljkok · « **Reply #38 on:** **Yesterday** at 15:42 »

Quote from: angelacat on Yesterday at 13:34

Is this related to drop in sales - things haven't really improved for me even though I'm not getting many rejections, not uploading many photos anyway.

Or is the drop in sales just me?

Thanks

Probably just seasonal/port specific Angela
Mine is fairly constant. More rejections (quality/similar), but that's probably true for most contributors at the moment

flywing · « **Reply #39 on:** **Yesterday** at 20:19 »

Quote from: angelacat on Yesterday at 13:34

Is this related to drop in sales - things haven't really improved for me even though I'm not getting many rejections, not uploading many photos anyway.

Or is the drop in sales just me?

Thanks

Sharp drop in sales since mid-April for me. I think it's because the tariff effects are kicking in around the world.

PokemonMaster · « **Reply #40 on:** **Today** at 04:36 »

Quote from: Raul.Ceron on April 30, 2025, 13:29

Hello!

You may have noticed in recent weeks more content being refused as “too similar.” This is part of our ongoing effort to maintain the relevancy and discoverability of content within the Adobe Stock collection.

We understand that an increase in refusals can be discouraging, but this is an opportunity to refine your portfolio and submit your strongest content in future submissions.

To learn more about how to submit distinct content that stands out in our collection, please refer to our Learn & Support article.

Thank you for being part of our Contributor community!

Unfortunately, it's not truth. If you need unique or underrepresented content - tell me and I will change my workflow. I want to present only the things you want and have 100% approval rate. But it won't happen, because right now I have rejections of a unique content with the reason "Similar images in our base". Believe me, there were no similar images anywhere! I made a few tests with unique subjects, compared to the base.

Injustice for all · « **Reply #41 on:** **Today** at 06:58 »

yes,that's exactly how it is.

I too had submitted 4 contents of which I found maybe 1 or 2 similar ones in the adobe stock library,and yet 2 of the 4 contents were rejected.

if you submit a batch of 10 contents of anything,similar or not,saleable or not,you're lucky if 5 will get approved.

In my opinion,the new review are aimed first and foremost at reducing spam and reject at least half of the contents.

then as a second goal imo,also improve the quality of the library and the ports,pushing people to upload only the best of the best.

then imo they also took into account that many contributors would be discouraged,and it was taken into account that if someone gives up it's even better,leaving more space for producers who produce higher quality,but also give space to new contributors with fresh new ideas and new locations..new.

because here the point of everything is to produce things that sell,there is no more room for huge batches and banal and repetitive contents.

so yes,rejection for "similar" in my opinion has a broader spectrum.

edit:

I am in fact more than sure that Adobe wants to get rid of me,but unfortunately for them I can't give up!

zeljkok · « **Reply #42 on:** **Today** at 11:54 »

And in the meantime spammed shells are still happy

https://stock.adobe.com/sg/search/images?creator_id=206533842&filters

while Raul.AiBot is hiding in one of them

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Author Topic: Update on Similar Refusals (Read 1855 times)

zeljkok

zeljkok

cobalt

f8

cobalt

Injustice for all

DiscreetDuck

trek

Injustice for all

zeljkok

Injustice for all

DiscreetDuck

angelacat

zeljkok

flywing

PokemonMaster

Injustice for all

zeljkok

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