Reasons content is rejected at Adobe Stock

Learn about the reasons for content rejection at Adobe Stock so you can get your content accepted into our collection.

Overview

All files submitted to Adobe Stock go through a review process to ensure that they meet Adobe Stock’s quality standards. We generally aim to notify contributors within five business days about the status of submissions.

This article explains why we reject certain files and what we look for when we review content. Our goal is to help you become a successful contributor to Adobe Stock. If your content is rejected, you receive a reason from the moderation team. There may be more than one reason, but in order to review files in a timely fashion the reviewers only share one. If you receive a rejection, use it as an opportunity to carefully review your file and the reason for rejection and decide if it is worth fixing to submit again. Make sure that your changes are tangible, and address the reasons the file was rejected, before you resubmit.

Similar file already submitted

To make money licensing stock content, it helps to have a lot of content. However, we encourage you to choose quality over quantity and make sure that each file you submit offers something unique to a customer. Similar content is one of the leading rejection reasons at Adobe Stock. To learn more about the differences between useful variations and image spamming, see Similar content versus spam.

Note:

Sending multiple copies of identical content can be perceived as image spam, and can result in your account being blocked or closed entirely.

Aesthetic or commercial appeal

Ask yourself: “If I were the customer, why would I buy this image?"

If you can’t answer that question, we recommend that you change your approach if you want to submit content to Adobe Stock. Pay attention to the details: If you have a photo of a great-looking family enjoying a barbecue but the barbecue is covered in rust, the image's commercial value is greatly reduced.

Note:

Common subjects like flowers, pets, sunsets, and food are already heavily represented on Adobe Stock. New submissions for these categories are approved if they stand out and show the common subjects in unique ways.

Non-compliant file

This reason means that your content doesn’t comply with our Contributor Agreement. Content may be non-compliant due to watermarks, inappropriate or irrelevant keywords or image titles, or questionable, or defamatory content. Your file is also rejected as non-compliant if you receive a reminder to submit a model or property release, or resolve a problem with a release, and you resubmit the file without addressing the issue.

Intellectual property refusal

Intellectual Property Refusal

If your files contain certain elements that are protected by intellectual property laws, we can’t accept them into our collection. For more information, review our legal guidelines. These measures are in place to protect you, our contributor, as well as our customers and Adobe Stock.

Elements protected by IP may appear in the image or in the description, title, and/or keywords. Here are some examples of subjects protected by intellectual property laws:

Products and objects
Commercial products (e.g., toys, fashion items, electronic devices and designer furniture) should never be in focus and/or be the main subject of the content if they're identifiable and distinctive in visual appearance, like shape or color.

Trademark, trade dress and intellectual property
We can't accept any appearance of logos, trademarks, company or brand names (e.g., Apple, Nike, Gucci and BMW) in your images. This includes identifiable packaging or other product dress.

Locations, venues, monuments, landmarks
Ticketed locations with paid admission—like zoos, museums or amusement parks—very often have photography restrictions. Images require property releases when they depict unique locations with distinctive features in an identifiable manner, including but not limited to identifiable enclosures, installations and animals.

Some landmarks and monuments can't be accepted, depending on location, artist, age and all other relevant restrictions. It's your responsibility to find out if any photography restrictions apply.

Architecture, buildings
Modern architecture with unique building structures requires a release when it's the main focus of the image. However, depending on the specific situation, city vistas, skylines or closeups may be fine.

Copyrighted objects
Images depicting or originating from artworks, sculptures, street art, drawings, illustrations, literature, fonts and graphic elements are not acceptable if not originally created by you.

Quality and technical issues

Files can be rejected for many different quality or technical issues. See Quality issues for specifics.

Reasons for content rejection