How To Avoid Rejection in Photos: Quality Standards
If your photos were rejected with the “Quality standards” rejection reason, this information will interest you!
This is one of the most questioned reasons among Freepik contributors. So in this post, we’ll give you the answers on how you can prevent your photos from being rejected due to quality standards.
What is “Quality standards”?
This rejection reason is mainly related to quality standards. At Freepik, we aim for professional content of the best quality. Thus, if your photos in some way have poor quality, they will be rejected.
A photo that doesn’t meet the aesthetic and technical standards may present technical issues, such as framing, composition, focus, noise, levels, and so on. Also, a photo may be considered as having poor quality standards when it’s been taken with the wrong equipment, such as the phone camera.
Knowing that, let’s break down some of the most common mistakes when it comes to aesthetic and technical standards!
Common Mistakes That Affect Quality
Wrong equipment
We don’t accept photos taken with a phone camera or a low-cost reflex camera.
Most of these pictures have poor quality. Perhaps they look nice on your phone or tablet, but, when seen on a computer display, the quality is low: they present focus issues, overexposed areas, and a huge etcetera.
Freepik offers professional content, and we want professional photographers after each photography. This is what differs us from the rest and will differentiate you from others.
Our pro tip: We know that making money from stock is tempting; however, if you just begin taking photos, we recommend you take it slowly. Learn first, upload later. This is the only way you can make the most of stock photography.
Unwanted dust on the camera sensor
On many occasions, contributors send us images with dark spots. It’s because your camera sensor has dusk particles on it (it commonly happens when shooting the sky using a closed diaphragm). Here’s how you can prevent dust on your submissions:
→ Clean the sensor
It’s essential to clean the sensor from time to time. Most cameras include a feature to clean the sensor automatically. Alternatively, you can do it manually, but in this case, you need to be extremely careful and use only specific tools for sensor cleaning.
→ Use the Clone Stamp to retouch your photo
Another option to delete dust spots is to use Photoshop’s Clone Stamp tool during the editing process.
The area you clone must be similar to the cloned one. Regarding the Clone Stamp settings, make sure the brush’s edges are soft, so it blends perfectly with the background.
Unclean settings
When shooting still lifes and backgrounds, presenting clean and neat settings is a must. How can you prevent your photo from coming out unclean?
Before taking the photo, make sure you clean the object or the surface, especially when it comes to food still lifes photography.
Then, after taking the picture, check there aren’t unwanted hairs, rests of food, fluff, stains, etc. Use the Zoom Tool to carefully scan the scene and the Clone Stamp or the Patch tool to repair the area.
Portraits
In the case of fashion photoshoots, or portraits, the person’s and clothes’ aspect is crucial, and failing to present a neat portrait may lead to rejection.
We’ll reject your photos when people present weird facial expressions, closed eyes, poorly done make-up, lipstick stains on teeth, or dirty fingernails.
Flaws in clothes is also a reason for rejection, such as stains or wrinkles.
Chromatic aberration or color fringing
It’s possible that colors on the edges of your photos get distorted. It usually happens when working with white or light backgrounds. It may sometimes be unnoticeable, but you need to be careful as we can reject your content due to chromatic aberration.
→How to easily fix chromatic aberration
Create a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and select the colors according to the color fringing. It will depend, but color distortion presents typically purple or blue fringing.
After that, reduce Saturation to 0. These settings will turn the bluish or purplish fringing into greyer tones.
If the changes affect the object or the model, then you’ll have to use a layer mask and a brush to recover the original hues.
Apart from these, there are other aspects you need to bear in mind to prevent rejection: reflections on glasses, unwanted elements on the scene like wires, tripod’s legs, or plugs.
Remember to put into practice these tips to prevent your files from being rejected. Besides, by improving the quality of your images, you’ll get more compelling photos!
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