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Do it yourself: 8 x tips for making mouth-watering pictures of your baked goods

11 Apr 2017

Article

Nowadays posting visuals on Facebook or Instagram can fuel your success online. After all isn’t a picture worth a thousand words? Luckily every smart phone is equipped with a decent camera and there are plenty editing apps you can download for free. Nevertheless a bad picture is easily made. With these hands-on tips and tricks from food photographer Kyonne Leyser every baker or patissier can make gorgeous pictures of baked goods.  

1. Clean start

Taking a visual pleasing picture starts with a clean lens. Remove fingerprints, dust and other dirty spots from the lens. Every time again. It is a small effort that makes a huge difference. You can use your t-shirt, cloth or cleaning wipes to make you lens spic-and-span.

2. Hurry up

Your baked goods will look at their best when they come straight out of the oven or kitchen. The same goes for a counter that has just been replenished. Make sure you are prepared. Think beforehand about where you want to take the picture, prepare the setting and arrange the attributes you want to use. Make sure the windows in the counter are cleaned and there are no crumbs lingering in the background.

3. Bright light

Natural light is key. The best light for pictures is daylight; take this into consideration when you pick a place to take the picture. If there is no daylight you can simulate the same effect with a white led light. Avoid using the flash on your phone or camera because it will make the structure and colour fade away.

4. Perspective

From which angle you take the picture depends on the composition of your dish or the filling and layers of your baked goods. When the dish has no real height dimension, you can take a picture from the top. Taking a picture from the side will give your picture more depth and reveals what's inside.

5. No zoom

Important! Do not use the zoom for a close up just move the camera closer. Zooming in may reduce the quality and sharpness of your picture.

6. The set

The food should be the centre point of the picture. Backgrounds that are too busy will distract the attention of the food. Cutlery, glasses and signing can add something extra to the picture but keep in mind that the focus should be on the food. Almost every phone has a focus setting that you can use to make distracting backgrounds blurry.

7. Finishing touch

In the app store you can find plenty of tools for photo editing. A very familiar one is Instagram. Although it is alluring to use one of the available filters, for food pictures it is better to try the editing tools. Use tools like: contrast, brightness, warmth and structure. Just experiment with the different tools, see what happens and decide what looks visually more pleasing.

8. Make it worth to share

In todays visual world it is essential to be able to make a good picture. But what's even more important is that you enthuse your customers to share their pictures of your shop & offering to the world. So always make your product presentation stand out, choose attractive branded packaging materials for your take out orders and make sure your shop interior is neat and tidy.