Friend of mine (his English is even worse than mine - so I have to ask) has a collection of images of old cars that he shot in his atelier. He tried to upload few of them to Shutterstock as editorial. They were rejected - not because of technical quality but because of description.
I know how description of editorial images should like but  what to fill in description when it is shot in atelier and not at exhibition or similar place? Any idea? I thought that reviewers would understand that it is impossible to use usual Shutterstock Description format for editorial images.
Thanks for help.

atelier = French for Workshop, for anyone else. I had to go look it up. Thanks for a new word that I might remember.

It's possible that the rejection, which you haven't given the specifics, was Not Newsworthy Image. Or maybe not an editorial caption.

In other words, just putting a date, location and some words, doesn't make it editorial. I know they take many that aren't and are kind of close, they also reject some that are close the other way.

Lets just say for example you did something like this, which might work.

Detroit, MI, USA Circa 1957. Chevrolet Bel-Air convertible classic vintage car of the American designers era.

I had one where I used the Men's fashion of the turn of the century as the caption and the newsworthy editorial. I thought it was a good way around it. No, I was wrong, it failed.

Here's the rejection: Public Domain images require source, creator, year, location It was a PD image it wasn't commercial so I have no source or creator. Out of Luck?

First rejection when it wasn't editorial:

"Model Release--Commercial images with recognizable individuals require a model release"

and

"Limited Commercial Value--We do not need this image at this time."

Let me say, I thought it was a good image, the inspection team did not.

I keep running into this issue with SS all the time.

Last contact I had with SS was that I'm supposed to "make up" a newsworthy statement so that they can approve it.

You can easily upload those shots by including a simple fact about the car like

Detroit, MI, USA Circa 1957. Chevrolet Bel-Air convertible classic sold over 2 million times between 1952-58.

or

Detroit, MI, USA Circa 1957. Chevrolet Bel-Air convertible classic was the first mass production car with separated front seats.

It should be an actual fact that you state in the description. With cars it shouldn't be difficult as they all have something special going on.

Good luck.