Hey Folks,

My acceptance rates are still only around 70% which is much lower than the other 15 companies I submit to. Maybe they have the highest standards in the industry now?

No, they have rejectiongate. Apparently a large part of reviews are now done by an algo and since 10 weeks the review is unpredictable and often random.

With 70% you are still doing very well.

They refuse to communicate about the problem and we are left alone to figure out what works and what doesn't.

The only good thing they did was to add upload limits.

So inspections are now getting faster.

I think "rejectiongate" is nearing an end. My last few submissions the majority are getting accepted. I am not sure how I suddenly improved my "quality issues" but I did.

I hope so. I still upload very little and I still get quality and similar declines.

Used to have 90% acceptance rate, not anymore.

But the speed of inspections has improved.

Regarding rejection rates. Is it the same for AI vs. non-AI?

Acceptance rate at about 96%
But I don't submit photos o real videos, maybe for illustrations and motion graphics is easier to get accepted.

I haven't uploaded to Adobe Stock in months. Today I thought I'd try a small upload of 5 photos to see how long it took and whether they had recovered their senses.

The good news is that the reviews took only a few hours.

The bad news is that they accepted 2 and rejected 3 for "quality issues".

Sales are reasonable with the portfolio I have, but I won't upload any more.

The collection continues to get genAI content accepted with wonky hands, maps, piano keys, insects, sheet music, bathroom faucets, calculators missing keys and on and on. These oops images aren't creative; it's lazy AI slop and doesn't belong in any self respecting collection

Look at some examples from just the last week or so (click for larger version):

That collage is quite telling Jo Ann.  My situation is quite similar to yours, although I keep my rather modest submission rate (5 - 10/week)

I have a question if someone can please enlighten me.  The following image was rejected as RF,  only to be accepted as Illustrative Editorial



Why???  Aerial view of Malaga, Spain.  Yes in the centre is Corrida (Bullfight Arena), so what?   There are several examples at Adobe Stock library that are not Illustrative Editorial where Corrida is much better seen:

https://as2.ftcdn.net/v2/jpg/11/84/02/33/1000_F_1184023369_K4DCbs3kn6MqpYUXWkHPIOgrf7zi5pvG.jpg

https://as1.ftcdn.net/v2/jpg/00/51/79/08/1000_F_51790812_VwiOapK6j66qFQ43uEojh0bxXqv5m328.jpg

... and many more ...

Any comments?

Few rejections one for one of my cats "too similar to existing".  I mostly do video so maybe that's why my acceptance rate is around 90%.

1 shot was rejected, trademark issues, even though I removed the trademark.  The second shot which was exactly the same only this time a zoom in shot, again trademark removed (closer up) accepted. 

Jo Ann Snover - thanks for sharing.  Some are obvious AI flaws but some are not immediately apparent.  If customers don't notice them at first but after publish - I'm guessing they will not be happy. 

I still don't get if AI images can't be copyrighted how are these been sold.  Nobody can answer this - if images are not copyrighted then are they not in the public domain and free to use. 

Quote from: zeljkok on June 05, 2025, 05:14
That collage is quite telling Jo Ann.  My situation is quite similar to yours, although I keep my rather modest submission rate (5 - 10/week)

I have a question if someone can please enlighten me.  The following image was rejected as RF,  only to be accepted as Illustrative Editorial



Why???  Aerial view of Malaga, Spain.  Yes in the centre is Corrida (Bullfight Arena), so what?   There are several examples at Adobe Stock library that are not Illustrative Editorial where Corrida is much better seen:

https://as2.ftcdn.net/v2/jpg/11/84/02/33/1000_F_1184023369_K4DCbs3kn6MqpYUXWkHPIOgrf7zi5pvG.jpg

https://as1.ftcdn.net/v2/jpg/00/51/79/08/1000_F_51790812_VwiOapK6j66qFQ43uEojh0bxXqv5m328.jpg

... and many more ...

Any comments?

Did you remove all hotel logos (there are a lot of hotels in this view)?

Quote from: zeljkok on June 05, 2025, 05:14
That collage is quite telling Jo Ann.  My situation is quite similar to yours, although I keep my rather modest submission rate (5 - 10/week)

I have a question if someone can please enlighten me.  The following image was rejected as RF,  only to be accepted as Illustrative Editorial



Why???  Aerial view of Malaga, Spain.  Yes in the centre is Corrida (Bullfight Arena), so what?   There are several examples at Adobe Stock library that are not Illustrative Editorial where Corrida is much better seen:

https://as2.ftcdn.net/v2/jpg/11/84/02/33/1000_F_1184023369_K4DCbs3kn6MqpYUXWkHPIOgrf7zi5pvG.jpg

https://as1.ftcdn.net/v2/jpg/00/51/79/08/1000_F_51790812_VwiOapK6j66qFQ43uEojh0bxXqv5m328.jpg

... and many more ...

Any comments?

I think that the problem could be the little colourful cube on the right - it is Centre Pompidou building and its design might be copyrighted (as it is the case of eg. Guggenheim museum in Bilbao by Frank Gehry). But it is just my guess.. Or the illumination of the Arena (as the one of Eiffel tower), although this one does not look spectacular. Hard to say..

Hilarious examples lol, the best one is the girl with the big old male hand!

For me, it just seems to be a generic 'quality issues'. I far as I can tell, it is good quality (I do pre-edit, inspect, etc) - so I suspect it is just a 'quota' thing.

Wow. I'm quite shocked at the images Jo Ann shared. No wonder buyers are complaining if this is the quality they get in search results.

As a primarily editorial photographer, I feel Adobe really need to move AI images to a separate category rather than mixing them in with real photos. That said, I don't have a good buyer's perspective, but it seems like a chore to find real images when I search for "similar images".

I have had much better acceptance rates in the last few weeks for editorial photos. I've decided not to bother with commercial images on Adobe going forward. It seems the market is diluted and clients can easily make their own AI images cheaply online, plus Adobe clearly do not want them. It's a shame, as the talent on this forum can easily outclass anything AI has to offer.

Quote from: Yola on June 05, 2025, 13:34
I think that the problem could be the little colourful cube on the right - it is Centre Pompidou building and its design might be copyrighted (as it is the case of eg. Guggenheim museum in Bilbao by Frank Gehry). But it is just my guess.. Or the illumination of the Arena (as the one of Eiffel tower), although this one does not look spectacular. Hard to say..

Yes, only possible explanation is Pompidou Cube.  (No hotel logos at all).  Other examples in the Adobe library don't the cube.   I am surprised they accepted it as illustrative editorial though.  Interesting enough,  SS took it just fine non-editorial, and SS is very anal specially lately about such things.

(I have several shots of Pompidou Cube itself, but always with recognizable people so can't upload to Adobe)


Could cut these 2 in Photoshop of course, but don't want to - in my opinion they add something to the scene.

Thank you!

I like that i get more per sale from Adobe than other places, but i can't seem to get many approvals at Adobe.  I get stuff approved elsewhere that Adobe just says no.  I know i need to get better work uploaded, but you'd think there's some consistency amongst the agencies as to what qualifies as a good image  nope

Im finding it near impossible to get any images accepted now.
Always "similar images in collection".

Underwater? Similar already
Drone shots of anything at all? Already there
Aurora photos? Already there.

Note this isnt MY portfolio, i often have none of whatever topic in mine.  I also suspect its an algorithm as those rejections come relatively quickly after submission and others in the same batch that dont suffer it stay in the review queue for much much longer.

In the last 4 months, I have only had 7.7% of my images rejected.
I try to use unique descriptions and keywords as much as possible.

Photos and videos are also revieved very fast.

I am testing a lot and what seems to help, last batch had 75% accepted

- making my files very small 2800*1600

- very generic short titles and simple hand added keywords, no kw presets

- images that are cliche stocky, a blank boring vibe but with cheerful colors and a little artsy.

If it is a file I am confident will sell well...it will get a decline

If it is something truly unique, absolutely does not exist on Adobe...it will be declined

This is all for ai, I am trying to see what I can get accepted from the files created for this year.

Normal camera and videos were ok, but it has now been a while since I uploaded that. Working on new camera content

It is very frustrating and it feels that instead of simply lowering upload limits again, they are using a random lottery algo to control inflow numbers but without any guidance for creators

Reviews are inconsistent and cannot be discussed with peers in the community section. Admins cannot give advice. I am sure those that have portfolios are just as frustrated as we are.

Overall it simply lacks logic and has no benefit for customers.

Lowering upload limits and consistent, predictable quality reviews would be a simple solution.

Why is Adobe being so erratic? It worries me ,what else is coming?

What exciting news awaits us?

There's been a change for about a week now. I've started getting similar rejections for my vectors. What's odd is that I checked their collection and there's nothing similar to the design that was rejected. Meanwhile, a simple pattern passed without issues. I have no idea how the review process works. I don't submit a lot, and usually spend a lot of time on my designs, so it's pretty demotivating.

In the discord creators have mentioned that Adobe has "expanded" the similar rejection to all other media types as well.

So now we can all enjoy the fun of having no clue what makes our files not eligible for sale on the Adobe marketplace.

I recently came back from a trip. I submitted over 300 photos to Shutterstock. Only two rejections and four went to data licensing. The rest were up and running within a couple of days of submission and they are already getting sold.

I submitted just 11 to Adobe.

Why the difference? Because Adobe makes it too difficult for contributors. You never know what will be accepted and what will not. And then there are the ones which just seem to be stuck in submission. I've had 5 shots 'in review' for seven months now.

Adobe acceptance has become a lottery but without any clear rules. So why do the work? I would love to be more active on Adobe and I have loads of images I'd like to submit. But it just feels like I would be wasting my time.

My acceptance rate for both videos and photos on AS has been 100% the last couple of months.

So, I can't complain yet. I guess the content I shoot isn't saturated, which is maybe why I've had a high acceptance rate.

I always make sure titles and keywords are somewhat different, even for assets from the same shoot. I also submit 1-2 videos/photos from the same shoot, max per day.

I've read that people have resubmitted items that were initially rejected for being similar, and they ended up being accepted. That says it all.

Not too many rejections, annoyingly one for AI content but I emailed them to say it wasn't AI and I've never uploaded any AI - it was accepted. 

Sales terrible on Adobe past week only 1 clip sale and a couple of photos, usually get daily sales. 

Been experimenting with illustrations, I'm not very skilled at drawing at all.  So far not great results.