Dreamstime does not publish one canonical list of rejection reasons. What it publishes instead is a set of guides written by its own photo editors, quoting the exact refusal text reviewers send, and those quotes group cleanly into four causes: technical execution, copyright and trademark, missing or invalid releases, and no editorial value. Almost every refusal you will see is one of those four wearing different words.
That matters because the refusal email is written for a reviewer's convenience, not yours. It often bundles several possible faults into a single sentence and leaves you to work out which one applied to your file. Knowing the four causes, and what each one really tests, turns a vague message into a specific fix.
Cause one: technical execution
This is the largest group and the most literal. Dreamstime's own refusal texts name distorted pixels from interpolation, poor scanning, upsampling, oversharpening, over-processing and over-filtering, and JPEGs not saved at the highest quality. Others name noise, poor contrast or incorrect exposure, poor lighting from the wrong time of day or dull skies or harsh shadows, white balance errors, dust on the sensor, and focus problems including depth of field that is too shallow or not justified by the subject.
Composition sits in this group too. Dreamstime's wording is that a successful commercial image needs a clear composition that supports the main concept and primary subject, and it names tight crops, tilted images and crooked horizons as the failures it sees.
Illustrators get a parallel text: poorly traced or auto-traced artwork, noise and inaccurate texturing on 3D renders, aliased or jagged lines, banding on gradients, and blurriness caused by software upsampling.
The technical floor, in numbers
- Images and raster illustrations: at least 3 megapixels, JPEG in RGB, best-quality compression, maximum file size 1 GB.
- Colour space: the final JPEG must be saved in sRGB. Files saved outside the accepted RGB profiles are refused on that basis alone.
- Vectors: AI, EPS, CDR or SVG. Photographs may also be submitted as camera RAW.
- Video: QuickTime MOV preferred, Photo JPEG or MJPEG codec preferred, up to 30 seconds recommended and up to 60 seconds acceptable in some cases.
- Audio: WAV or FLAC, minimum 44100 sample rate, minimum 16-bit, up to 600 seconds.
One clause deserves its own line because it catches experienced contributors. If you isolate a subject on white and the isolated area, once cropped, falls under 3 megapixels, the file is refused, even though the original frame cleared the minimum comfortably. Shoot isolations tighter and larger than feels necessary. The general version of this problem is covered in our guide to the resolution stock photos actually need.
There is also a refusal for files that did not finish uploading and therefore could not be reviewed at all, which asks you simply to reupload. If you see that one, nothing is wrong with your photography.
How to fix technical refusals
Review at 100 percent before uploading, which is how the reviewer looks at it. Back off noise reduction and sharpening rather than adding more, since Dreamstime treats excessive noise reduction and oversharpening as faults in their own right. Never upsample to reach the megapixel floor. Check corners for sensor dust and gradients for banding, and straighten horizons before you export rather than hoping nobody notices.
Cause two: copyright and trademark
The refusal text here covers elements that might be protected by copyright or trademark, such as logos, brands and specific buildings, anything that can identify a property or product including letters and numbers, and anything that could raise usage problems. It closes with a line worth memorising: some copyrights are absolute and cannot be accepted even as editorial.
Dreamstime's editors have published an unusually specific list of what triggers this, and it goes far beyond obvious logos. Branding on the arms of eyeglasses, on clothing buttons, on cutlery, inside shoes and inside guitars. Car and motorcycle makes, models and licence plates. Tyre branding. House numbers, letterboxes, and the names of ships and boats. The Adidas three stripes and the Nike tick even without a wordmark. Toys such as Barbie, Disney characters, Bratz and Lego whether or not branding is visible. Books, magazines, comics, sculptures, paintings, graffiti and framed photographs.
Two entries on that list surprise almost everyone. Tattoos need a property release signed by the tattoo artist rather than the person wearing it, because the artwork belongs to the artist. And software interface elements count, with the Windows logo and the Apple command key icon both named explicitly.
Some locations are refused outright, even editorially. Dreamstime names Starbucks, the Atomium in Brussels, the Crazy Horse Memorial, Casa Mila La Pedrera and anything shot at Hobbiton, and lists Uluru, the Lincoln Memorial, the Hollywood sign, Disneyworld and the Empire State Building among restricted tourist sites.
Three more refusals live in this group. Banknotes photographed frontally or fully from the back are refused because of money laundering law. Illustrations that appear traced from another source are refused, and Dreamstime asks tracers to upload the original in the property release area. And images carrying visible watermarks or timestamps are not acceptable as royalty-free stock.
How to fix copyright refusals
Most of these are solved with a clone tool or a different angle, and both are cheaper before the shoot than after it. Do a brand sweep on set: turn labels away, tape over logos, choose unbranded props. When retouching, remove the mark rather than blurring it, because a blurred logo is still an identifiable logo. If the branded element is the point of the picture, the file belongs in editorial from the start, and you will still need to check the restricted-location list first.
Cause three: model and property releases
Dreamstime's contributor terms put the obligation on you before upload: you agree that you hold the copyright and that you have already obtained a model release from every person in the picture, including children, deceased persons and people who speak another language.
A release is required for every identifiable person, not only the main subject, and it is still required when the main subject is seen from behind or has their face obscured. Isolated body parts such as hands, legs and feet do not need one, with a single exception: if a unique tattoo makes the person identifiable, you need both a model release and a property release from the tattoo artist. Illustrations built from an identifiable model need a release too.
The release paperwork itself generates its own refusals, and this is where careful photographers still lose files.
- Digital signatures are only accepted from approved apps, and the app name and build must be visible in the footer. Dreamstime names Model Release, ASMP Release, Easy Release and its own Dreamstime Companion on iOS, and Dreamstime Companion and Easy Release on Android, alongside Model Releaser and Snapwire. Signatures drawn in an image editor or pasted in are not accepted.
- Generic release forms must be in English or bilingual with English. Dreamstime's own official release is accepted in any language.
- One release per model. Scanning two models onto a single form is refused, as is a release that grants exclusive rights to a third party.
- The metadata you enter in the release library, including age, gender and ethnicity, has to match the release itself.
- A third-party witness is required, and the model, the property owner, the photographer and a parent cannot witness their own release.
- Nudity requires the model's official photo identification, photographed together with the model and uploaded as a single file.
- Release files themselves must be JPEG or PDF, and the filenames may contain only letters and numbers with no special characters.
Cause four: no editorial value
This one reads like a judgement on your photography and usually is not. The refusal text says Dreamstime sees little usage value for the subject in the editorial section, and a second version invites you to submit the file as a regular royalty-free image instead because its commercial potential is greater. In most cases the file is fine and it is standing in the wrong queue.
Editorial is for content that documents something. Dreamstime accepts famous people and politicians, landmarks and tourist destinations, logos and brands, public places such as museums, memorials, stores, markets and zoos, sculptures and artworks, transport and vehicles, copyrighted toys and board games, sporting events, parades and protests, schools and colleges, people in the workplace, indigenous people, and people in public places.
It refuses as having no editorial value the subjects that document nothing: skies, plants, trees, flowers and rocks, posed people and studio shots, pets and animals, still life, crops of houses, doors and windows, mountains, sunsets and beaches, selfies, and food.
Editorial also brings a processing restriction most contributors underestimate. Dreamstime's terms say post-processing that might damage or distort reality will not be tolerated. Cropping and standard brightness and contrast adjustments are acceptable, but the clone tool, brushes and artistic filters are not meant for editorial media. Editorial captions carry their own requirement too: where, who, when, and why the image matters, including the event name and date.
The metadata refusal that hides in plain sight
Alongside the four causes sits a refusal aimed squarely at your keyboard. Its text names irrelevant or incomplete titles, problems with the description, keywords or categories, titles and descriptions that are identical to each other, and text written with caps lock on. It ends with instructions rather than an explanation: use only keywords that are most relevant and specific to the subject, do not copy and paste, do not rush.
Dreamstime does not publish a hard keyword minimum or maximum. Its editors publish guidance instead, and the number they give is 10 to 25 relevant keywords, on the argument that unnecessary words dilute your chances of appearing in the searches that matter. If a word does not describe what is in the image or video, leave it out. We go further into how the vocabulary behaves in our Dreamstime keywording tips.
Dreamstime also warns about its own autofill feature: because it makes copying easy, contributors end up submitting the same title, description and keywords for every file, and each image still has to be assessed individually. That is a rejection cause created by a convenience.
AI-generated work has one rule that refuses files outright
Dreamstime accepts AI-generated images under five stated conditions. You must hold all rights to the generated image, which some AI tools grant only on a paid plan. The description must state clearly that the image is AI-generated. One of the categories chosen must be Illustrations and Clip Art then AI-generated. Generated faces may only be uploaded where providing a model release for them is possible. And every other site term still applies. The category rule is the one that bites: Dreamstime's editors say a file without that category is refused outright. The wider picture across agencies is in our guide to metadata for generative AI images.
One caution on faces. The policy page permits generated faces where a release is possible, while Dreamstime's editors have advised against submitting realistic human faces at all, accepting figures seen from behind with no facial characteristics visible. Where the two differ, follow the stricter reading and check the current policy page yourself, because the AI framework is the part of Dreamstime's rulebook most likely to move.
The AI-specific refusals are familiar to anyone who has generated at volume: artefacts, blur that only shows at full size, invented watermarks and signatures, misspelled or incoherent text in the image, quality loss from upscaling, and AI-reproduced logos, branding, legal tender or vehicle badges.
How resubmission actually works
Dreamstime has a specific mechanism rather than a general appeal. Upload the corrected file through the normal process so it lands in your Unfinished files folder. Go to your refused files folder, click the resubmission option, and pick the corrected file from Unfinished. Dreamstime asks you not to resubmit without correcting the issue named in the refusal email, and notes that using the resubmission ID keeps the licence type you selected the first time.
There is no published formal appeal process, no guaranteed second review, and no stated limit on resubmissions. The contact form does carry Submission questions and Priority review categories, which is the route for a refusal you believe is factually wrong rather than a quality judgement.
Where a tool helps, and where it does not
Nothing automates your way out of a soft photograph or a missing release. What software can do is stop the metadata refusals, which are the most repetitive and the most avoidable of the four causes. Rastock AI writes titles, descriptions and keywords from the image itself so no two files inherit the same text, and its banned and mandatory keyword rules let you keep brand names out of a whole batch and force in the terms a given agency expects, with rollback if a rule turns out wrong.
It also delivers to 10+ agencies over FTP and SFTP, which matters after a Dreamstime refusal for a different reason: a file refused as having no editorial value is often perfectly saleable elsewhere, and it costs nothing extra to try. The 14-day trial does not ask for a card.
Dreamstime is one of the more transparent agencies about why it says no, once you know where the wording lives. If you are seeing the same file bounce in more than one place, it is worth reading the refusals side by side, starting with Adobe Stock rejection reasons, because a fault that two agencies name independently is almost always real.
Frequently asked questions
What resolution does Dreamstime require?
At least 3 megapixels for images and raster illustrations, submitted as JPEG in RGB at best-quality compression, with a maximum file size of 1 GB. The rule that catches people out is the isolation clause: if you isolate a subject and the resulting crop falls under 3 megapixels, the file is refused even though the original cleared the threshold. Vectors are accepted as AI, EPS, CDR or SVG, and photographs can also be submitted as camera RAW.
Can I resubmit an image Dreamstime refused?
Yes, and there is a dedicated mechanism. Upload the corrected file through the normal upload process so it lands in your Unfinished files folder, then go to your refused files folder, click the resubmission option, and select the corrected file from Unfinished. Dreamstime asks you not to resubmit without correcting the issue named in the refusal email. Using the resubmission ID keeps the same licence type, editorial or royalty-free, that you chose the first time.
How long does Dreamstime take to review submissions?
Dreamstime says a few days are usually required, and gives each file an Estimated Time until Review. It is explicit that the ETR is an approximation that moves with weekends, the total number of pending files and overall submission volume. You are not expected to wait before uploading more, and Dreamstime says you can keep submitting while earlier files sit in the queue. Its contact form also carries a Priority review category.
Does Dreamstime accept AI-generated images?
Yes, under defined conditions. You must hold all rights to the generated image, which for some AI tools requires a paid subscription rather than a free tier. One of the categories selected for the file must be Illustrations and Clip Art then AI-generated, and omitting that category means outright refusal. The policy also states the description must clearly say the image is AI-generated, and Dreamstime will only accept generated human faces where providing a model release for them is possible.
How many keywords should I use on Dreamstime?
Dreamstime does not publish a hard minimum or maximum on its own pages, and the counts that circulate in forums are contributor guesses rather than policy. What its photo editors do publish is guidance: 10 to 25 relevant keywords are worth far more than a long list of unnecessary words that dilute your chances in search. The refusal text targets irrelevant or incomplete titles, copy-pasted metadata, identical title and description, and words in all capitals.
What gets rejected as having no editorial value?
Dreamstime accepts editorial content that documents something: famous people, landmarks, brands and logos, public places, sporting events, protests, workplaces and copyrighted objects. It refuses as having no editorial value the subjects that have no news or documentary character, listing skies, plants, flowers, rocks, posed or studio shots, pets, still life, sunsets, beaches, selfies and food. Those refusals usually come with an invitation to resubmit the same file in the royalty-free section instead.