601 replies to this topic

[Blether]

... 1. When I adjust image size in Photoshop the pics are still fairly large. Is there a way to ultra-compress in Photoshop? ...

Holly, when you save your photo in Photoshop, don't you get the 'JPEG Options' dialogue ? Yes, you can use "Image - Image Size" to resize the whole picture. But the 'Quality' part of 'JPEG options', with the slider and the level number (1 to 12 ?), is I believe the same as the type of compression you're talking about.

[philadining]

Yeah, Holly, as Blether said, there are plenty of ways to resize your photos within Photoshop, you don't need another program. After you've done all your tweaking to the shot, I'd save an un-compressed version of it, either as a photoshop file or maybe a tiff, in case you want to do something with it for print. yes, this eats up a lot of disc space. Get over it. Big hard drives are cheap these days, get a large one, or two, or a RAID set to mirror (RAID level 1.)


Then, if you're posting to the web, go to the Image menu, choose Image Size, and change it to the size you desire: 72 dpi for the web, then whatever actual dimensions you want in pixels or inches or whatever dimension you want. Be sure to check the Resample box, along with the Constrain Proportions box.





Then, after it's been resampled, you may want to do some sharpening... or not...

Then, if you choose "File>>Save for Web & Devices" you'll get a dialog that allows you to choose the image type and tweak the amount of compression you want, giving you a before and after pane that shows the consequences of your choices, both visually and as a file size.




Also - regarding your white-balance issues - you'll have LOTS more control if you shoot RAW, and then upon opening the RAW file, use that dialog to adjust the color temperature until the whites are white. That gives you much more to tweak than the post-processing adjustments of levels, or curves, or color balance, or hue and saturation. The auto button often gets close, but you'll still usually want to tweak the blue-yellow (temperature) slider a bit, and then, you almost always need to adjust the exposure setting, and/or the black levels.




Of course it's even better to have the white balance set right in the camera, but the real-world lighting conditions don't always play along. You should try to avoid having different light sources with different color temperatures hitting your subject at the same time. If your plate is being lit by an incandescent lamp, but you're also sitting near the window, and it's simultaneously being lit by sunlight, you'll end up with parts of the shot too yellow or too blue, and there's no easy fix for that...

Edited by philadining, 13 October 2010 - 11:18 PM.

[percival]

One of the prettier breakfasts -- from last week. Annatto rice, shrimp peas carrots scramble. I actually had breakfast first, then shot the photo with leftovers, so the eggs are overcooked/dry, and they don't have the nice steamy look. Annatto gives great color, though I'm not fond of the smell. Fortunately that goes away by the time it's served. The image itself is heavily cropped. It was taken with my new Sony NEX-5 and an antique Canon Serenar 50mm 1.9 lens, which arrived the night before. Wanted to try it out. Turns out it's very soft, which was expected, but it doesn't really work for macros: closest focal distance is ~3 feet.

[percival]

[Blah, double post...]

For photo editing, I highly recommend Adobe Lightroom 3.2 -- there's really no better tool out there for photo editing. Not only feature-wise, but simplicity as well. Far better than Photoshop. And Lightroom handles RAWs better than even OEM software.

Edited by percival, 14 October 2010 - 12:01 AM.

[Blether]

Sorry to those of you who saw the photo in Lunch - what'd ya have ?, but - huitres Ansel Adams:

Edited by Blether, 08 November 2010 - 09:36 AM.

[heidih]

Blether- the stone counter plays beautifully with the colors and pattern of the oysters

[Rico]

blether, I had a bad oyster experience in New Orleans a few months ago during March Madness (completely my fault; when you're with college buddies and drinking huge amounts of beer, eating 100 oysters at $.25 a pop seems like a good idea), and this is the first time since then I've wanted to eat them again. That's the highest compliment I can think of. That's a great photo.

[Dakki]

The sun came out today so I thought I'd give this photo business a shot.

Tacos YET AGAIN. Will the madness never stop?!

[tino27]

I recently upgraded my point and shoot to a digital SLR (the Canon T3i) which came with a standard kit lens (18mm-55mm f/3.5-5.6). While I have already taken some amazingly sharp photographs using the kits lens, I realize that there are probably better lenses with which to shoot food. I primarily shoot at the restaurant itself and while I am enjoying the range of the zoom lens that came with the camera, I find myself mostly shooting in the 18-28mm range, with an occasional zoom to frame the food better.

I am considering upgrading to this lens and don't mind dropping some cash, but I figured I'd ask some of the other food photographers on eGullet which lenses they preferred to shoot with (or, if you have an opinion about the lens to which I linked).

Feel free to post a picture or two taken with your lens if you feel it would help illustrate the capabilities better.

[hathor]

I use my Compact-Macro Lens 50mm most of the time. Flickr stream here.

[SobaAddict70]

^I was just wondering because it looked (to my eyes) like the brightness had been adjusted just a little, compared to SobaAddict70's picture of the scrambled eggs, which looks like the brightness (and maybe colour) has had more of an adjustment.

I love the composition of the photo (was that David Chang's recipe?). It seems to me that a lot of really talented chefs (pastry or savoury) tend to have excellent composition when it comes to photography. Makes sense if you think about the artistic side of cooking.

(I don't just mean professional chefs, but also home cooks/bakers, "serious" or otherwise.)

The brightness was adjusted a little bit but the color is as is. Lighting was from an overhead studio lamp. Those eggs really are that yellow. They're not from the supermarket.

[tino27]

I use my Compact-Macro Lens 50mm most of the time. Flickr stream here.

Is that a prime lens? In a lot of the food shots I am doing, I'm trying to get the entire plate of food in the frame while still sitting at the table. At 50 mm, I would've needed to back up a few feet in order to achieve that.

You have some nice photographs on your Flickr page.

[Moopheus]

Okay, for laughs, I will post a few. Here's one I like:

[Holly Moore]

Got a question about framing/cropping food on a plate - how tight to go? I waiver between showing most or all of the plate or cropping in on the food. Three crops of the same pic - and maybe none are the best approach.

1 - Plate with the background.



2 - Tight on plate - framing right on the edge of the plate and below on the plate shadow.



3 - Cropping all the way to the food, omitting most of the plate.



Cropping to the food, emphasizes the food but can take it out of context. Curious how others approach cropping plated dishes.

Pic is of the Churchill Burger at Pub and Kitchen in Philadelphia.

[dcarch]

IMHO:

1. The profile (top) of the burger is obscured by the French fries.

2. There should be more French fries showing.

3. The way all the other objects are arranged do not add any drama to the picture, might as well eliminate them.

4. The table top wood design/pattern can be played up a little.

dcarch

[Holly Moore]

Thanks, dcarch, Are you saying you prefer the middle cropping, but with the changes you made? I often find cropping a plated dish difficult - whether to lose the overall feel to focus on the food.

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Here's a crack at it from me. These are Ecuador's "sweet" spices.

[Genkinaonna]

Panaderia-That is such a cool picture! Kudos!

[nickrey]

Holly, I'm with dcarch on his suggestions: the plate probably needed to be rotated about 45 degrees clockwise to bring more of the fries into the shot. It would have balanced the picture more. Also where I've seen backgrounds used effectively is to give a sense of place to the food. In this case, it doesn't really so I'd go for a tighter crop with the turned plate and with the fries more in alignment with the grain of the table.

[Blether]

Here's a crack at it from me. These are Ecuador's "sweet" spices...

That's a cracker.

[Panaderia Canadiense]

What really gets me is that I know that the top right and bottom left spices come from the same tree.... Thanks, folks, for the boost!

[dcarch]

Holly, I'm with dcarch on his suggestions: the plate probably needed to be rotated about 45 degrees clockwise to bring more of the fries into the shot. ---------

I can be very interesting rotating the same picture 45 degrees.

In this picture (which is very artistic chromatically and texturally), by rotating it 45 degrees, somehow all the ingredients becomes equaly important to the eyes.

dcarch


Before




After

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Huh. I'll be darned - it reduces the visual importance of the Canela bark, and brings the Ishpingos into balance with the Star Anise. I shall definitely use it diagonally on the website it was taken for..... Thanks, dcarch!

EDIT - for those who are curious, the original photo from top left contains: Star Anise, Whole Allspices, Ishpingo, Canela Bark, Anise, and Cloves.

Edited by Panaderia Canadiense, 12 June 2011 - 08:48 AM.

[SobaAddict70]

Panaderia-That is such a cool picture! Kudos!

I agree.

Moopheus, that's actually a great shot. Black and white pix are harder to carry off than you might think, imho.

Here's one I took within the last two weeks that came out well, despite the busy-ness of the photo.


Smoked bacon and wild mushrooms, with sautéed spinach

[ChefCrash]

Hi Holly, nice looking burger. I agree with all the responses above and want to add that you should experiment with tilting your camera in either direction (off horizon). A horizontal plate leaves a lot of empty space.
It can be done in post:

[Toliver]

2. There should be more French fries showing.

I agree with this french fries comment along with the comment in another post about the rotating of the plate to achieve this.
I'd love to take the top bun off the burger to better see what's under there but I'm inquisitive that way. The lighting is quite good, too.
If your goal is to show what you're eating, the tight shot is more appropriate. If you are also commenting on the restaurant itself, then perhaps the mid-range shot would be better to show off the table decor/setting.

[Prawncrackers]

May I submit these to the panel - A study in Brown Crab...

I took the first photo off the cuff really, just before scrubbing these two hen crabs clean and dispatching them with a skewer. They were all tensed up and looked like they knew what was coming. Anyway I took one shot, light wasn't great and they were still moving a little, hence the shot was a little soft:


I don't usually do much post-processing, maybe just the odd brightening here and there but I thought this shot looked interesting. So I decided to apply some sharpening and up the contrast. It really surprised me how it made these creatures pop out of the picture. Especially the hairs on the legs, you really get a sense of the texture of the shell, don't you think?


These crabs were destined for linguine, but that's one thing I find tricky to get right on the plate/in the bowl. I made this dish twice in the past week and just can't decide which is the more appetising presentation and gave the better shot. The first dish had the linguine wrapped around a carving fork and placed carefully in a cheffy way into the bowl. This one was taken with flash bounced off the ceiling:


The second was taken with natural light and here the pasta was just dumped into the bowl for a more natural look:


So what do you think? I can't decide which shot I prefer, I'm not really that happy with either. Will a smaller or differently shaped bowl help perhaps, and is there anything else I can do with long pasta to get a better composed shot?

[dcarch]

Prawncrackers, those are excellent photos and plating. Since aesthetics is subjective, I would have done things slightly differently, but that does not mean what I have done is better than yours.

dcarch




Changed the perspective to remove edges of sink to have less distraction. Made crabs a tiny bit lighter so they can standout more.


-----------------------------------------------



Corrected color, made roes more translucent, made crab meat show up better, added more green sprinkles.


---------------------------------------------



Rotated picture 2 degrees clockwise. Took out bread in the back because it is unindentifiable, Made roes more translucent. Made greens fresher, and remove some brown at upper left hand corner. Also, made crab meat show up better.

Edited by dcarch, 13 June 2011 - 02:37 PM.

[Holly Moore]

Thanks for all the suggestions. Really like the idea of tilting the camera, or rotating and cropping to achieve the same effect.

As to the fries showing - normally I would, but this was a special situation. Pub and Kitchen had just introduced their Churchill Burger - it was the first in Philadelphia to use La Frieda ground beef. I wanted to just show the burger and hide the fries. As I recall I ended up using a picture where the burger and bun were split open.

I just grabbed this pic because it was an easy one to crop to varying degrees.

[SobaAddict70]

May I submit these to the panel - A study in Brown Crab...

I took the first photo off the cuff really, just before scrubbing these two hen crabs clean and dispatching them with a skewer. They were all tensed up and looked like they knew what was coming. Anyway I took one shot, light wasn't great and they were still moving a little, hence the shot was a little soft:


I don't usually do much post-processing, maybe just the odd brightening here and there but I thought this shot looked interesting. So I decided to apply some sharpening and up the contrast. It really surprised me how it made these creatures pop out of the picture. Especially the hairs on the legs, you really get a sense of the texture of the shell, don't you think?


These crabs were destined for linguine, but that's one thing I find tricky to get right on the plate/in the bowl. I made this dish twice in the past week and just can't decide which is the more appetising presentation and gave the better shot. The first dish had the linguine wrapped around a carving fork and placed carefully in a cheffy way into the bowl. This one was taken with flash bounced off the ceiling:


The second was taken with natural light and here the pasta was just dumped into the bowl for a more natural look:


So what do you think? I can't decide which shot I prefer, I'm not really that happy with either. Will a smaller or differently shaped bowl help perhaps, and is there anything else I can do with long pasta to get a better composed shot?

I would've been satisfied with either shot but the 2nd one is more (to my eye) aesthetically pleasing. And also more food-pr0n worthy, as if the photographer was a professional, shooting for a food magazine.

Choice of bowl is important. I recently went to BBB (Bed Bath & Beyond) and got a couple of deep pasta bowls. I eat pasta A LOT, so I'll be using them almost exclusively over my other serving bowls.

The difference is striking. There's more "white space" which in turn, puts more emphasis on the content of the photo. It also means I don't need to do too many close-ups, unless that's the effect I'm going for.

Contrast this:



with this:



to see what I mean.

With dcarch's "corrections", I prefer the pic where he or she made the roes more translucent. In that pic, the roe is the center of attention and the first thing my eye gravitates towards.