Understand Rejection: 10 Reasons for Rejected Content

Content submitted to photoAC might be refused to be published due to several reasons! To help you understand rejections better, in this article, we listed out 10 common mistakes to avoid to get your content published.

Table of Contents

Rejection ❶ – Content that is ”Poor quality”

A content is rejected for the reason of being of poor quality, it is because of one of the following issues:

Content that does not meet the company’s basic technical and aesthetic quality standards
Content that does not comply with the basic composition rules. We recommend you refer to the basic rules of composition, including rule of thirds, leading lines, negative space, balance and symmetry.
Content that contains a font that is not consistent with the resource and is not for commercial use
Content that has presents lighting, contrast, or opacity issues
Content that does not make sense

Poor composition examples

Rejection 1 - poor cropping — *Poor cropping: The flowers are cut off & look unintentional*

Rejection 1 - poor framing — *Poor framing: the bush blocks the view of the gate*

Acceptable composition examples

*Nice cropping: the image looks well composed*

Minimalism — *No distraction: modern, well styled and uncluttered*

Rejection ❷ – Content that is ”Offensive to public order and morals”

A content is rejected for the reason of being offensive to public order and morals, it is because of one of the following issues:

1. Content contains nudity and adult content

Content that depicts a person’s nakedness or half-nakedness
Content that is heavily exposed
Content that contains sexual expression
Content that is obscene

Examples of content with acceptable nudity

anatomy — *This content is acceptable because it is a medical illustration*

2. Content contains violent expressions

Content that is considered to encourage or encourage violent expressions such as bleeding, beating, stabbing, or shooting people or animals will be rejected
Content that encourages the use of illegal weapons and drugs
Content that depicts child abuse

3. Content accusing or attacking a specific subject

Content that contains any expressions or words that attack a specific individual, country, group, or organization
Content that includes elements of racial discrimination

Rejection ❸ – “Similar content”

Any content that has a few to none of the differences from other content in the same submission or is very similar to the content that has been published before will be refused to be published.

Flipping an image vertically or horizontally and submitting both the original and flipped version.

Submitting many versions of the same image with tone, saturation, color, or filter changes

Minor changes to text, labels, symbols, or other secondary elements

Acceptable similar content examples

Images that all show similar subject matter, but individually have different visual characteristics

Rejection ❹ – “Not properly tagged”

Right keywords to describe the content will foster users’ search experience, raise the chances that your content can be downloaded, and increase your income as a result. The following cases will be considered as not properly tagged:

Irrelevant tags, for example, ”Christmas” is inserted into Content about summer
Not English tags: you should only use English when inserting any descriptions of the Content

So, how to add tags properly?

Rejection ❺ – “Not properly categorized”

Just the same as tagging, when you choose the right categories for your Content, it will be displayed in the right places and users can find your content more easily when searching.

So, how to choose categories properly?

Rejection ❻ – “Improper title”

A content is rejected with the reason of improper title because of one of the following issues:

Title is not in English and not spelled correctly
Title is not related to the image
Title contain special characters such as å, é, ø, ?, etc.
Title contain unnecessary information such as website links, camera settings and information, photographer’s name or business name

Rejection ❼ – “Personal information included”

A content is rejected with the reason of including personal information because of one of the following issues:

The creator’s signature or copyright included in the content
The content that portrays a celebrity or famous people in recent years (Walt Disney, Kiyoshi Atsumi, Marilyn Monroe, John Lennon, etc.)

Rejection ❽ – “Registered trademark included”

A content is rejected with the reason of registered trademark included because of one of the following issues:

Content that contains a registered mark (red cross mark, Olympics five rings mark, SNS mark, toll-free mark, etc.)
Content that contains registered artwork
Content that contains registered logos or brand names of other companies or products
Content that the manufacturer can be easily identified (Especially content of cars)
Content that portrays famous people such as actors, actresses, players, etc.
Content that includes the lyrics of existing songs, novels, manga, poems, etc.

michal kubalczyk tdMu8W9NTnY unsplash 1 edited 1 scaled — *Photo by Michał Kubalczyk on Unsplash*

campbell 3ZUsNJhi Ik unsplash 1 edited scaled — *Photo by Campbell on Unsplash*

Rejection ❾ – “Not stock photos”

A content is rejected for the reason of not a photo because of one of the following issues:

Content that is easily identified as an illustration
Content that is over-processed to be called a photo (blowing the highlights, crushing the black, over saturation, excessive shadow/highlight control, over sharpening, too much noise, etc.)
Content with strong privacy such as family commemorative photos at travel destinations, and photos that are unlikely to be in demand as stock photos

22031062 edited — *This is easily identified as an illustration.*

Rejection ➓ – “Releases related”

Any content that contains recognizable individual should be submitted with a Model release attached.

If the individual is 18 years of age and over, an adult model release is required.
If the individual is under 18 years of age, a minor model release is required.

If you want to shoot a private property, or a private property that is distinctive from a public place, an artwork or custom designed vehicles, be sure to obtain a property release from an authorized representative of the owner of the property. A property release signifies that the owner or authorized representative of the property has given you permission to use images on the property for commercial use. It’s important to keep in mind that it may be subject to certain protections.

The above are 10 common mistakes that you should avoid to get your content published. We believe that you can save much time and effort to avoid rejection when carefully reviewing this article. If you have any questions, check our FAQs or feel free to contact us.