Adobe Stock rejected your real photo as “not marked as AI generated”.
What the rejection means, the two routes contributors use to get a real photo reviewed again, and what to send.
Checked against the sources below on 10 October 2026.
What happened.
Adobe Stock reviewers rejected your image as AI-generated content that was not marked as AI. Contributors on Adobe’s own forum have quoted the notice like this:
“During our review, we found that your image was likely generated using artificial intelligence, without this being marked.”
It happens to real photographs. In June 2025 a contributor had 11 photos rejected this way and said they had the RAW files. In October 2025 a photo from a Nikon mirrorless camera was rejected as “likely to be generated by AI and not labelled as such”; the contributor said its only AI step was AI Denoise. Similar threads go back to 2023.
Community experts on the forum say this misclassification happens from time to time, and that the AI reason is sometimes selected by mistake when the image had a quality problem instead. A rejection notice can list more than one possible reason.
Do this first.
Keep everything. Don’t delete, overwrite or re-export your originals. Working files, drafts and process photos are what proves you made it.
- RAW or original camera files, unlocks L2
- Layered project files with their history, L2
- Progress shots or process video, L2
- Device-signed capture (camera or phone signs the file), L3
- A live capture session with two reviewers, L4
You don’t need all of it. The more you can show, the higher the level a TraceHumanity reviewer can certify.
For a photograph, the RAW file is the heart of it. Keep the camera metadata (EXIF) intact, and be ready to say which editing tools you used, including any AI-assisted ones such as denoise.
How to get it reviewed.
Rule out a quality rejection
Read every reason on the notice. Check focus, exposure and clipped highlights. In the October 2025 case, a community expert said the photo should have been rejected for focus, not AI.
Route one: ask contributor support
Use the Contact Us link in Adobe Stock contributor help and ask for the image to be reviewed again, with your RAW file and metadata as proof. You can’t contact the reviewer directly. One contributor reported that support re-evaluated their image, refused it for quality instead, and accepted it once that was fixed.
Route two: resubmit once, with a release
Fix any quality issue, submit it as a photo with its camera metadata, and attach a signed property release stating it is a genuine photograph. Community experts suggest this route. One calls it time consuming; another advises resubmitting only once.
Add your certificate link
Whichever route you take, include the link to your TraceHumanity certificate so the reviewer can check the record themselves.
What is not published. These routes come from Adobe’s community experts on the contributor forum, not from an Adobe policy page. We found no dedicated appeal form for this rejection and no published response time for contributor support.
What to write.
Hello. My image [file ID and title] was rejected as likely generated by AI and not labelled. It is a photograph I took on [camera] on [date], and I have the original RAW file. A person at TraceHumanity reviewed my original files and issued a certificate, public at [certificate link], where anyone can check the signature and the file hash. Please could the image be reviewed again. Thank you.
Send it to contributor support, or with your resubmission, and replace the brackets. Your link is on your certificate page in the public registry.
What a certificate adds.
A person reviews your evidence against a published standard and issues a certificate. It does not replace the evidence the platform asks for. It gives the reviewer a record they can check for themselves.
- A public page anyone can open, including the person reviewing your appeal.
- Signed with a published key. The signature can be checked without trusting us.
- File-linked provenance. Watermark recovery depends on the image and any transformations applied to it.
Your first three works are free across all five levels, including evidence review. No card required. Each level still needs qualifying evidence and approval. Pay only to add more works.
Take the guide with you.
TraceHumanity is not an AI detector. We don’t guess whether something is AI. We establish, with evidence, that a specific work was made by a human.
Sources.
- Adobe Stock Contributors forum: “I got 11 images rejected for the reason ‘not marked as AI generated’”6–7 June 2025
- Adobe Stock Contributors forum: photo rejected because Adobe believed it was created by generative AI3 October 2025
- Adobe Stock Contributors forum: photos rejected for allegedly being generated with AI, “but they were not”2023
- Adobe Stock Contributors forum: rejected for a missing generative AI flag (support and release advice)7–10 May 2024
Other guides.
Etsy removed your handmade listing under its Creativity Standards: how to appeal
Where the appeal lives in Shop Manager, the evidence Etsy asks for, the deadlines and what to write.
Pinterest or Instagram labelled your art as AI: why it happens and what to do
What triggers the labels, starting with your file’s metadata, and what you can do on each platform.
Flagged as AI somewhere else?
The general appeal: the evidence to keep, what to write, and the record you hand over.