5 Simple steps to edit food photos

Even the greatest and the most talented photographers edit their photos using post-processing software, so why not you? It doesn’t matter if you have the most expensive camera in the market, or that your basics are covered as far as food photography goes...editing your photos is still an essential part of the process.

Here are a few steps which food photographers can follow to cater for any flaws that might have crept into their photos. First get a good photo editing software and then go ahead:

1. Crop and straighten: Since you would be shooting up close or in Macro mode, so there would be very little scope for cropping as such. But there would be an occasional item that would creep into your photo, so crop that if necessary. Food photos look best when you DON’t shoot them with a titled camera. So straightening the photo is also a good idea if you are not using a tripod.

2. Auto-adjust the exposure, since many editing software do give you the option of doing so while post-processing. It allows you to adjust brightness, shadows, highlights and contrast.

3. Sharpen the image, as it will highlight the textures and the extent to which it was cooked. If these details are visible in a photo, then chances are people will appreciate the clarity it provide in terms of preparation as well.

4. In most cases, it is not a good idea to add yellow tones to the photo as it might make the food a little stale or overcooked. So stick to neutral white balance, or add a little temperature by upping the blue tones.

5. Airbrush or simply mask over parts of the photo which doesn’t belong there in the frame. For example, that stray piece of coriander next to the plate, or excess flour randomly sprinkled near the cake stand are things that should be visible in the frame. So remove it.