/ck/ - Food & Cooking

>forum

>>4522415
ok...BOARD

Apply a shitty filter over your photos, apparently.

>>4522411
1. Place camera lens on stool
2. apply vegetable oil to anus
3. sit on camera lens

Good lighting is important. A lot of the pictures on /ck/ are taken in somewhat poorly lit rooms where maybe the camera's flash should be used.
It's probably worth running your photos through an editor to increase the contrast as generally having the blackest blacks and whitest whites you can get make things look more exciting. I would say this is equivalent to adjusting the lighting before taking the photo and not cheating.
I've heard that in professional food photography people add things like nail polish to the food to make it look nicer.

>>4522411

>Take pictures of food
>Put on facebook and twitter

Yes, become a part of the retarded generation who has the urge to let everyone know they know how to do simple cooking...

I despise you people...

>>4522452
>hating people for showing their friends their creations
i was 16 too once

You're probably better off going to >>>/p/

In saying that, I'm a photographer and it is pretty fucking difficult to do nice food photos. As >>4522440 said, lighting is a major component, and they do more than just nail polish. Imagine trying to take photos of something like a steak, glistening hot from the grill; you've got a very short window in which it will remain hot and juicy (and being hot will influence how hot it looks) otherwise you have to brush it down with oil etc etc.

As for your amateur show-off-this-nice-dish-I-prepared kinda shots, the OP pic is actually a nice example of setting the dish in natural light, using the correct depth of field in the apple shot and almost right in the last one (holy fuck, do I hate seeing all these food photos where you can't even see what something is because of the short dof) and limited clutter around it. Focus on simplicity in the setting (adding props works, but it makes it harder to control the look) and make sure the food is actually presentable in the first place.

>>4522440
>It's probably worth running your photos through an editor to increase the contrast as generally having the blackest blacks and whitest whites you can get make things look more exciting. I would say this is equivalent to adjusting the lighting before taking the photo and not cheating.

Just to see how pretty I could get some pics I took earlier for a different thread, I ran my final cookie shot through some GIMP filters.

On the left is the base image, as seen by my shitty Samsung Aspire (3.2MP, no flash). In the centre, I simply adjusted the black, white, and grey levels to balance the whiteness. This is pretty basic, and what I recommend doing for all photos. For the lazy, Color -> Auto -> White Balance does something similar.

The far right third is the one I put more work into, and I think it shows. I cloned the middle layer and altered the Brightness (+15 iirc) and Contrast (+25), and adjusted the colour levels to favour reds and yellows over cyans and blues.

I think the final image is most representative of what the cookies looked like IRL, and would rather your opinion of my cookies be judged on that image than what my shitty camera produces. So yeah, +1 for photo-editing.

>>4522452
>not joining hobby cook groups on facebook and sharing food photos with each other

>>4522476
>>4522486
This is really interesting. Please post more if you can think of anything else to say. I have an old compact camera and gimp if you've got any specific advice for those things.

>>4522454
>hating people for not being attention whores
I was 12 too once

>>4522452
you might like cooksuck.com

>>4522514
I'm >>4522476
(not the same guy as >>4522486)

There's not much more to add that doesn't involve getting used to using your camera and learning basic principles of photography. I'm all for checking your photos over and retouching wherever necessary in post[production], but getting it right in camera is always better if you can. That's setting your exposure, aperture and white balance (WB) to the scene (cause your food ain't going anywhere, you may as well make sure your camera is set to the light of the room).

As for the post work, try and get these three things right:
WB,
>for most food shots, you're gonna wanna lean to wards being warmer, as >>4522486 did.
levels
>that's making sure your darks aren't too dark, your highs aren't too bright and your mids aren't wrong either way.
and sharpness
>this is usually a quick step, but often depends on the shot itself how you should apply it. Note that a lot of shitty "insta" filters lose sharpness to hide the shit quality of your original.

If you're feeling like a /p/ro, go ahead and edit out the ugly crumbs on the edge of your plate or the drop of blood on the table, but know that doing more than this is compromising the integrity of your actual culinary skills. ie: get better at cooking; not better at editing pictures.

>>4522492
I did lol at this

I am using a cheap digital camera right now, but I getting a Nikon D3100 as an anniversary present in a few days. I am an excellent cook; my food look good, but I am having trouble with making my photos look good. Here is one I took the other day. I used a filter in the camera settings. I am writing a cookbook for my family and I want the pictures to look better. Is there an online resource with tutorials that anyone knows of?

>>4522593
Oh, I do have gimp. I am terrible at using it though. I don't know what the fuck I am doing on it. Here is another shot without a filter on "auto".

>>4522514
>>4522486 here. Having trouble finding the website with the wonderful tutorials, so I'll just try and breeze through what I did.

>First third of image
Untouched. This is how my camera sees things. Shitsux.

>Second third
Use Color -> Threshold to find the darkest spot on the image, cancel out of that dialogue, and use that spot to set Color -> Levels with the black dropper. Repeat the process for the lightest spot and the white dropper. You can do grey too (add a layer of #808080 set to Difference, make a New Layer From Visible, find that layer's darkest point, and use it to set your image's grey level) but it doesn't seem to make much difference most of the time.

Also, Color -> Auto -> White Balance. Sometimes it'll get pretty much the same result, usually it doesn't look as good.

>Final third
Adjust the Brightness and Contrast a little to bring out the depth of the image. In some images, even minor changes here do more harm than good, so I don't always change the B/C.

Colors -> Color Balance lets me change the balance of individual colours in Shadows, Midtones, and Highlights. Go through all of these and adjust as needed - my camera picks up a lot of blue, so I was mostly boosting the Red and Yellow colours on all three areas. A preset I used on my cookie photos is as follows (Red draws from Cyan, Magenta from Green, and Yellow from Blue):

Shadows: Red +10, Magenta +5, Yellow +10
Midtones: Red +5, Yellow +10
Highlights: Red +5, Yellow +10

YMMV, experiment at will.

>>4522556
Thanks. I'm guilty of sticking to auto white balance most of the time.

This thread has made me suddenly much more aware of the lighting/colours/composition/etc. of food pictures. Thanks OP.

>>4522615
aaaaggg. I want this to make sense to me! How do I into aperture? What does it mean? It has something to do with focus? /p/ is no help. Here is a shot of food I took to keep this /ck/ related.

>>4522615
Great, thanks a lot. I'm currently mucking round with random non-food pictures I took but i've saved your reply (and some other stuff from the thread) for the next pretty meal I make. My colour adjustments look a bit strange and false but maybe i'm just used to the original image and need to look at something else for a bit then come back to readjust the edited pic.

>>4522644
All that stuff in the background is really ruining this photo for me. That and I can't see enough of the actual food.

>>4522556
>sharpness
Note that this doesn't mean focus, or stillness of camera. As always, get the shot right in the camera; or, learn to shoot before you learn to photoshop.

>>4522593
This is not a bad shot -- compositionally at least. It does need a little tweaking: I'd go a little warmer, and I'd try and lift the mids and lows (to get those balls a little lighter). The background kinda works; maybe try cropping the edges of that table out, on left and right, just to tidy it up. Unfortunately, like most saucy dishes, it looks a little like brown balls in red slop with white powder, and without a lot of effort in presentation, you're not gonna change that much.

>>4522644
This photo is terrible in everything but the food itself. Oddly enough (or not), I really like the way it looks; it even has steam coming off it(!). But let's be honest here, you didn't think even once about what was behind the food, and it looks terrible. I mean, a sink full of dishes? People notice that shit, dude.
>How do I into aperture? What does it mean? It has something to do with focus? /p/ is no help. Here is a shot of food I took to keep this /ck/ related.
Ok.. maybe I shouldn't have mentioned /p/. They are not going to be any help in learning how to use a camera, the same way /fa/ is not the place to find out how to put on jeans for the first time. I'm not sure where to direct you, as when I learned photography, it was first hand and our homework was to read and reread the manual to the camera until we understood it all. You can probably google up a good how-to on this stuff: Aperture, Shutter speed (exposure length), and ISO. Learn how to use your camera and experiment (we are using digital after all, aren't we?).

>on this forum majority of your food looks like vomit

ok first of all you sound like you obviously dont come to this site. secondly, go fuck yourself with your subjective bullshit opinions.

>>4522677
>>4522644
I know the dishes look bad, the photo was an accident. The steam does look cool though. I was just trying to keep it /ck/ because I think this thread is helpful.

long shutter and a tripod works for me

>>4522486
I could very well see those were fucking cookies on the far left and I could judge them all the same with out your pretentiousness added to it.

>>4522683
That looks pretty delicious.

>>4522685
Wendy's?

>>4522677
You tips are useful, I appreciate your advice. I will work on my styling, a shallow dish and bed of zucchini noodles with a little bit of sauce would photograph better. Lighting is a mystery to me. I use a gooseneck lamp with a 75 watt bulb directly over the subject right now. I have been trying to find a food lighting tutorial that is decent.

Can anyone tell me if the Nikon I am getting is good for food photography? It has a 18-55mm 3.5-5.6 G DX VR lense (I think it is the one that came with it originally). I am also considering a tripod. This project is extremely important to me.

>>4522452
When I bought my smartphone the first thing my sister made me do with its camera was take pictures of food at restaurants


Granted I was surprised by how nice the phone camera is (sorry about the file size)

>>4522698
>Nikon D3100
This nikon?
Yes, it will be fine for any and all food photography you do. I shoot canon myself, but that is a fine machine there.

A tripod isn't totally necessary, but definitely wouldn't hurt if you've got the cash to spare. Consider getting a (cheap) bulb/remote trigger for it, to remove the shudder you give the camera when you press the button (or just put it on timer and wait the 2secs for it to take each photo). The neat thing about a tripod, that noone really thinks about, is that it forces you to really (REALLY) evaluate each shot.

One last thing before I have to go (I'll be back later if the thread's around) is, try taping a piece of paper over your lamp to soften the glow ... and get a higher watt bulb.

>>4522714
will do, thanks for the tips!

>>4522714
>try taping a piece of paper over your lamp to soften the glow
Also experiment with *not* doing this. As I think about it, food often wants a high sheen look to it, and soft light may not be what you're looking for. (As I mentioned earlier, I don't actually shoot food that much. Read: at all) Try different angles too, and definitely use natural light when you can (windows etc).

>>4522718
ok, makes sense. For "shiny" foods like pudding or noodle salad don't diffuse the light. I take tons of pictures and angles. I never count on just one shot to get the job done. I do use natural light (pic related) when I can, but lots of times I am cooking the food I am shooting for dinner at night and it does look better hot. Thanks again.

The first rule is to cook something photogenic.

For example, as delicious as
>>4522593
may be, it's always going to look like vomit on film. In general, sauces that have color variations don't work well. Leave off any toppings like grated cheese or pepper etc.

The foods that photograph well are "clean" foods like in the OP. Apples are easy, pie crusts are easy.

>>4522411
Good lightning
Then edit it in photoshop

Just visit food blogs that take really good photos and imitate what they do.

http://www.clockworklemon.com/2011/02/pull-apart-lemon-coffee-cake-.html

http://www.thefatcanadian.com/2013/05/beaver-tails-cinnamon-sugar-and-maple.html

http://www.cookingcomically.com/?page_id=555

>>4522738
I usually do cook photogenic things, the zucchini sauce and the meatballs are going in my family cookbook since it is a family favorite. I can experiment with how I photograph it. Maybe a meatball on a wooden cutting board next to a spoon of the zucchini sauce or something. I will leave the sprinkle-y stuff off next time. Thank you.

I am glad OP opened this up for discussion. I have need some guidance for a while.

>>4522411
all pro food photos are faked to hell. chocolate is plastic, everything is coated with hair spray to shinem and so on.

>>4522758
This definitely needs brighter lighting imo.

>>4522784
yeah, I know. I am working on it.

>>4522746

You can't just imitate on what they do. You have to know the process.

It's not even hard to get good photos of food as long as it doesn't look crap before hand.

Focus on the texture, good lighting is key, place your plate near a window if you don't have enough light. It's what is simulated in a lot of food images anyway. Don't use direct flash. Many cheap point and shoot cameras nowadays will have some sort of manual override. Not full manual though. Don't have enough light and it's night out. Place the camera on a steady object if you don't have a tripod. Even then you can get cheap table top tripod from the dollar store. If you can't do a long exposure on the camera and need to use the flash then use a flash diffuser. A piece of white paper folded over the flash will diffuse the flash and make the shadows much softer. You could even try using a mirror or something shiny to bounce the flash up to the ceiling. Which will bounce back down on to the image. For these methods you may need to increase the flash power, if possible. Try taking the pic at an angle of upwards 30 degrees. Top down view is reserved for ingredients. If you want to have depth of field (background blur) try getting closer to the plate or stand back and zoom in. Make sure the white balance is set correctly.

I see shitty photos here all the time where they are too blue or yellow.

I'm sure I'm missing out other stuff, but this is just very basic for people using point and shoots or don't know to use a DSLR to its fullet potential.

>tfw you bake a cheesecake and a huge fucking fissure shows up in the middle

>>4522452
I do it because I'm a culinary arts major.
Stay hungry faggot.

>>4522411
instagram

>>4522411
Protip- in professional photos of food, especially those used in magazines or advertisement, it's sometimes not food at all.

That dollop of unmelted butter on top of a pile of pancakes? Carved soap. Shaving cream as a substitute for whipped cream, and tasty looking unmelted ice cream isn't ice cream at all, though I can't remember what my professor said it really was.

>>4522897
That's some cool presentation. Are you a food stylist?

>>4522411
Step one: Get a fucken decent camera

step two: take a picture and get the most important part on 1/3 of the screen both horizontally and vertical

>>4522486
I tried some light editing like you suggested and it certainly makes my food look less washed out.

Anything else I could do to improve my photos?

>>4522411
>buy DSLR
>buy good lighting setup
>setup a little area for your food photography
>learn various little trick to make food appear appealing, like using cigarette smoke to simulate steam
>run photos through lightroom
>>4522772
This being other kinds of tricks those tricks I mentioned. Pro food photography is a scam, basically.

>>4522955
Damn, that looks delicious.

Maybe get the whole plate in the photo instead of having the top cut off? Also clean that bit of dirt to the right off the table if you can.

>>4522959
I'll do that next time.

>dirt
It's squirrel shit, anon. They come in at night and poop on everything.

>>4522960
Well you should definitely clean your table then. Gross.

>>4522955
Not a recommendation for the photo but it looks like you could improve the crisping of the skin by salting it and using a higher heat.

What /ck/ says:
> I just baked a honey roast ham served with pineapple in a beautiful display. I can't believe how good it was, I'm definitely going to cook with ham more.

What /ck/ means:
> Pic related.

I use my cell phone camera and I have no shame.

>>4522888
Try baking it in a water bath.
Or you could smooth the crack over with an angled icing spatula (I don't know if there's a specific name for those things). Wait until it's cool and be gentle. I've done it tons of times.

>>4522962
I eat in my room anyway so it doesn't bother me.

>>4523105
It's pretty crisp, I let it render skin side down on low heat for nearly 15 minutes. There's just a thin layer of fat left underneath.

>>4523130
So do I. It's surprisingly good quality, and I don't think most people can tell the difference anyway.

>>4522897
looks good, but spam lardons?

So this thread is dedicated to people who can't achieve the right food appearance through actual cooking and have to resort to editing their pictures?

This is the same thing as a guy taking photos of his workout progress then shooping his abs so they look more defined than they are, fucking pathetic.

And no, just because other websites always have pictures of edited attractive food does not make it okay, its the same pathetic thing, masking true talent.

>>4522411
If you call your picture fancy, all you need is vignetting and low saturation.

>>4523177
The picture is in focus, sharp, has good depth of focus, lighting, etc. Adding vignetting and low saturation to shitty photo will just make it worse.

>>4522940
Mashed potato is a common ice cream replacement in photos I think.

>>4523159
When you take a photo you don't get the exact same image your eyes see. The focus is going to be in particular place and particularly on cheaper cameras the colours might come out differently. Most of the editing discussion ITT is about fixing the image to actually represent the dish. The lighting discussion is similar and personally I find my meals look more appetising when I open the curtains than when I use my somewhat inadequate interior lighting, perhaps something you've experienced too. I get the feeling you didn't read the thread.

Just made this, fancy enough?

>>4523664

>>4523664
Mang, that looks like shit.

>>4523664
At first I thought this was gonna be a carbonara
then I died inside

>>4523664
Disgusting. How is it that white people always find a way to ruin food?

>>4523930
>>4523961
>>4523979
it's pretty tasty

>>4523664

>>4523664

>>4522655
Practice, practice :) My first dalliances with photo manipulation was in jr high school, using Jasc's Paintshop Pro software to clean blemishes on models and daemonise them (mostly making them look like vampires, which I was heavily into at the time). You'll get comfortable tweaking levels.

Layers are quite important. First thing I do when I open a photo for editing is clone the layer and work with that. That way I can always compare against the original, and any other paths I've taken when similarly cloned and tweaked layers.

I recommend doing it while the food is fresh on your mind, too, so you still have a good idea of what it's supposed to look like. It's easier to bring back an image from a few hours ago than days or weeks.

>>4522688
lol, u mad. I don't see the pretentiousness in my post, unless you're getting defensive about me dogging my camera. Do you, too, have a shitty Samsung Aspire? My condolences. But that's no need to hate on others trying to better the digital representation of their culinary creations.

>>4522955
That looks pretty good to me, colour-wise. As another Anon said, though, I would have changed the framing. Either got the whole plate in the shot, or done an extreme close-up of the food. The shot looks a bit blurrier than you'd see in a professional shot, but editing can't truly clarify an image - blurriness is best fixed with a tripod and a camera that can focus properly. A truly anal-retentive editor would also brush out those blemishes on the tabletop, but I think they add character :)

>>4523159
Do you really think the cookies I used in a demo up there came out blue? Cameras don't always capture things as they are. Trust me, the third part of my demo image is much more representative of what the food actually looked like than the unedited first.

>>4523664
>>4523664

wow. just, wow. I'd rather go hungry.

>>4523664
>but you should only eat as much as you consume
whut.

bump

>>4523664
this makes sketti look like a gourmet meal.

>>4522704

That's actually a really nice phone camera. Which is it?

>>4522486 here.
Took a shot of some potatoes I had earlier. Was just a quick test shot, so no careful composition or recipe-style series of photographs.

This one was taken in artificial light (the cookie shots used natural light), and there was less of a blue tinge to the photo than before. It actually wasn't that bad a shot for the most part. My biggest issue, really, is with the light glare in the top left corner. I could fix that with a few minutes' work with the Burn, Smudge, and Heal tools, but this is just a quick test of filters, not an entry for Food Network Magazine.

Here I ran Unsharp Mask (Radius 6, Amount 0.55, Threshold 0), fixed the White Balance (manually), and applied my "sans bleu" Colour Balance adjustment as described earlier in the thread (the photo wasn't as blue as the cookies, but still benefited, I think).

All in all, about five minutes' work in GIMP. Certainly not the work of a professional, but I'm fairly satisfied with the results. Especially since this was just a one-off shot with a shitty phone cam. I wouldn't even have taken the shot if I didn't want to experiment for this thread.

You, too, can have beautiful food pics, /ck/! Use the techniques described by myself and the /p/hotog ITT, and all your food can look better than Sceak's!

Am I doing it right?

>>4525015
Colours are a little bit washed out, but not too shabby. Haven't figured out how to get a camera to focus precisely where I want it yet, but I think the focus being on the (minced) meat in this shot would have been better than focusing on the bread. Good composition, though, in my amateur opinion.

Ok, I got a new camera. I am just learning to use it, It is a little intimidating. I took this tonight. I am still working on getting better lighting. I don't think I can make it look any brighter or more saturated with color without making it look like an instagram photo.

>>4526914
Crop, vignette, tone adjust.

>>4525015
Increased saturation, highlights towards yellow, midtones towards red, cropped, and slight vignette.

>>4526982
Tone adjust ruined the colours. The first picture, with better lighting, was just fine.

>>4526982
That is exactly what I wanted it to look like! I will look for tutorials on vignette and tone adjust for gimp. I can never get my tone to look any good. I can totally see how the vignette effect made the food stand out from the busy background. thank you for your suggestion.

>>4526995
Is that a bologna, stuffing, and pot pie sandwich? Why is there a paperclip in it? What is the black thing?

>>4527078
looks like a fishhook to me.

>>4527078

can't unsee

>>4522691
cravin asian boneless bites from kroger
a year on cold chicken has taught me

>>4526995
>>4527078
WHAT THE FUCK

>>4527078
Time for the photographer to get to the hospital?

>>4522598
No no no. Dont use auto. Manual, adjust the focus yourself, and adjust the aperture setting or shutter speed so it gets enough light. Make sure your white balance is correct too.

>>4526914
?

>>4527619
That's a lot brighter. How did you do that? Is the background supposed to be that color? It looks brown in the other pictures.

>>4527636
I upped the exposure by like 15 I think. I dunno about the background, it might be brown but it's really ugly anyway

>>4527643
and when I say ugly I mean for a background of a food shot, I'm not trying to insult this guy's tablecloth

>>4523664
>peel mushrooms
...Do people actually do this?

>>4527651
They put ketchup on spaghetti, I don't think we should trust anything in the image.

the best way to give volume to your pasta and other small pieces food is to put something solid under it to sustain it because pasta itself will crumble on its own weight.

>>4527656
>>4522486 and >>4525029 here, so I support digital enhancements to make shitty images appear more natural. What you're proposing is actually changing the posture of the food, and would be misrepresenting the product. I don't agree with such trickery, no matter how common it is in the Real World (which is known to suck). If your food can't stand on its own merits, you're not cooking or shooting it right. A flat pasta dish can look amazing - it certainly doesn't need to look like a mountain of pasta to appear appetizing.

>>4527662
>and would be misrepresenting the product
You want good photos or not?
Those tricks are good enough for 5 star restaurant, they are good enough for you.

>>4527675
It's easy enough to make your dinner look nice with a properly exposed and colored photo. No one needs to stuff their pasta just to post a picture on the internet.

>>4527675
McDonald's is not a five-star restaurant. Also,

>no matter how common it is in the Real World (which is known to suck)

>>4527662
So this >>4526914 and this >>4525015
are appetizing to you? You are enticed to eat them by the photograph alone?

>>4527750
That first dish is sloppily plated and unevenly cooked - both problems that can be fixed without using props. In fact, I fail to see how props could enhance this image. Spatially, it's not bad; that is to say, it doesn't just look like a limp bowl of noodles. Bulking it up would look unnatural.

Funny you should mention that second image, as I actually /did/ go in and adjust the balance and tone of that image (>>4525029 here, remember?). That sandwich does not look appetizing to me, because it's just such a disgusting monstrosity of poorly prepared food. Again, I fail to see what kind of props you could bring into play to make that thing look more enticing.

If you're using props and moulds and chemical stabilizers and straight-up false foods (like wax or plastic) to make your marketing look better, you're doing it wrong. Good marketing for a good restaurant starts with good food, which doesn't need that shit to photograph well.

>>4527759
but food doesn't translate well in photographs. to the naked eye it looks incredible, but a photograph may make it look dull and unenticing. The techniques used in food styling are to make the food look like it did originally or ideally.

>>4527790
>ideally
This is where my problem lies. When you start using fake shit to prop up your food images, you're holding up an ideal rendition of that food, which may not exist in the real world. Same thing with airbrushing models in fashion and porn distributions - you're not selling the model, but a perfect ideal of the model. It's dishonest, and unnecessary if your model is good looking to begin with.

It's a known fact that a souffle will begin to sink shortly after it's removed from heat. If you want to get a picture of the souffle in its prime, you have several seconds to set up and take your shot. Lighting, small blemishes on the counter or plate, etc can all be fixed in post-processing. But the *food* should sell itself.

>>4527662
That /p/ro here (read:phaggot).

I (almost) completely disagree with this. In fact for me, the less digital editing, the better*. But I agree with using anything real you want, to give the look you want. I believe that if the pasta and bolognaise you're showing is made of red paint and playdough, that's fine.

HOWEVER, red paint and playdough is never going to look more like pasta and bolognaise than pasta and bolognaise. On top of this, padding your pasta is fine, but why not pad it with more pasta?

Don't misrepresent the food by making it look nothing like what the dish normally comes out like.

Also, very much agree with >>4527681
When I see shit on /ck/, I really don't give a shit how the photo looks, cause I can infer what it will taste like from the ingredients and from the shitty little pic. But I would put in varying amounts of effort based on how important the image is (and how much money the endeavor might make). Blogs are a step up, but maybe leave them from looking too perfect for realism; restaurant websites and cookbooks are the next step up, I guess.

*don't pay much heed to "don't digitally alter your shit"; my camera is almost guaranteed to be better than yours and won't need as much tweaking, and so long as you're not misrepresenting the product, there's nothing wrong with adjusting the levels, contrast, or even pulling out a stray hair you missed during the shoot.

>>4527800
The problem that we're faced with, and you seem to be missing, is what I've always seen as a product of attention. When you look at a *thing*, you don't notice much other than WHAT it is and how GOOD it is (however that thing is evaluated). But when you look at a photo, you get as long as you want to look at it, and as such, your eyes will wander all over it, noticing *everything*.

Now talking about models is more my area than talking about food, and my principle is, I will "airbrush" out any blemishes and loose hairs, but I will avoid brushing out any moles or *constant* features of the person, and I will NEVER change her figure to be thinner or curvier (unless the client specifically requests it -- hey, I gotta make a buck, right?). NB, this is part of the reason we still use real models.

So in real life, you're not going to notice those blemishes, the same way you're not going to notice that your pasta is a little flat, cause all you're thinking about is how you want to eat it.

Now as for your souffle example, if you can get a restaurant or cookbook quality photo of some food item within "several seconds" then fuck you, man. I need time to set up my shots, and if I can't get my product to look right (right = real as well as appealing) then I'm gonna use other techniques to make it last long enough to get the shot I want.

Note also that being a good chef means that you can make the plate look good and that you have a good service team and can get a meal to someone the moment it's ready. This is a skill in itself, and something I respect, the same way a catwalk model presents herself in real time.

Good lighting, natural lighting if possible.
Clean surroundings.
Proper whitebalance, if not a bit warm for certain foods.
No flash unless it's done properly, could be used to give glasses a better touch.
Highlight on what you want to show, this is where DoF comes in place.
Take the photo when the dish is steaming hot(if it is a warm dish), moisten it up a bit with a spray of water.

Can't think of anything else right now.

BAM. Debate me, faggets.

Haha I'm just fucking with you. But hey, this is better than /p/ is most of the time.

I might add that I see where you guys are coming from and respect that, but please don't criticize the way food photogs have to do their job without seeing that process yourself. Requiring more integrity than is possible is unfair on anyone who has to compete with others who are airbrushing the shit out of their filet mignon.

>>4528675
Oh, and drinks~

Cold drinks needs to look cold obviously, like pic related.

Bar drinks should be shot with "bar lighting" in the background, leds and shit like that.

Here's where flashes does their job good, multiple if you're a "pro".

What else..

Steam again for hot drinks.

>>4528596
what do you shoot with?

Where would someone who would like to shoot better pictures go to learn online? I don't really know the jargon of photography. People give advice, such as
>Proper whitebalance, if not a bit warm for certain foods
or
>Here I ran Unsharp Mask (Radius 6, Amount 0.55, Threshold 0), fixed the White Balance (manually), and applied my "sans bleu" Colour Balance adjustment
or
>I upped the exposure by like 15 I think
once I look up the meaning of the words I have to figure out how to obtain the effect. Sometimes people use slang terms that don't translate well into a search engine query. Ex: Google RAW, you get wrestling.

>>4528733
>Sometimes people use slang terms that don't translate well into a search engine query. Ex: Google RAW, you get wrestling.

Your google-fu needs work, grasshopper.

Get a term you don't want? Exclude it. for example you might search for "RAW -food -wrestling" or "RAW - food -wrestling +photography"

Anyway, as for where to go online, I'd suggest a photography forum or message board. Ask there.

>>4528733
The best way to learn is to get an dslr, fiddle around with manual settings, shoot in RAW and then fiddle around with all the sliders and shit.

Whitebalance = How warm/cold the scene/photo is. Yellow/blue.

Exposure = the light of the scene pretty much, under-exposed = too dark so you lose details in blacks, over-exposed = too bright losing details in whites.

ISO = Sensors sensitivity to light.

Shutterspeed = how fast the photo is taken, 1/8000 of a second, 30seconds. Slower speed = more light to the sensor.

Aperture = depth of field. Higher number means more stuff in focus. There's blades in the lens opening and closing. A small number means a larger hole which in turn gives more light to the sensor.

The phrase "well exposed" is a good combination of all these together.

Light+perspective

>>4528773
+ terrible depth of field

>>4528780
GJ butting in!!!!!!111111

>>4528784
lol sorry

But good example of the radical difference composition can make on the same plate.

Warm lighting (incandescent bulb), the right perspective and shadows are most important. Also sprinkling your seasoning always helps.

>>4528733
>>4528762
thanks

>>4528677
Advocate for natural food photography here. You mentioned that you'll brush out blemishes on models (I assume you mean stuff like veins or mild acne), but leave the moles and (most importantly to me) figure alone. This don't have much problem with - no worse than brushing a smudge off a plate. I'd rather the plate be clean to begin with, but at least you're not really fucking with the food.

I also don't believe in doing something because it's popular. I'm certainly not going to tell you how to do your job, but I think if I were competing with airbrushed filet mignon, I'd work on the food itself. Cook it perfectly, plate it well, and let the food and presentation sell itself, not your Photoshop/GIMP skills.

You talk about shooting food like you're shooting a model, and I really do understand that from a professional point of view. But from a consumer point of view, and a fan of food, I'd rather see real pictures of real food. You said you have no problem with play-doh and paint representing spaghetti - that's because you're sort of in the advertising business, and all you care about is selling the product, no matter how badly misrepresented it is. I fundamentally disagree.

>>4529129
>and let the food and presentation sell itself, not your Photoshop/GIMP skills.
Meant "your artistic modelling skills", or something to that effect. First post of the day :x