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This is slightly off-topic, but is perhaps the best opportunity to clarify something I've recently started wondering about, and will no doubt be valuable to oth

by oz 15y ago

This is slightly off-topic, but is perhaps the best opportunity to clarify something I've recently started wondering about, and will no doubt be valuable to others on HN: I've been studying web design for the past few weeks, and naturally broached the issue of images. Is it possible to take 'professional' (i.e., 'website-worthy') pictures using consumer range equipment, such as the Casio Exilim and Sony Cyber-shot? For example, pictures of dishes for a restaurant website, or product pictures for an e-commerce site?

andrewvc 15y ago
Yes, so here technique really matters. You want a photo that looks professional. So, my article was written with a fine art perspective, but you aren't making fine art, you're making a brochure. This is where you need to learn about lighting. What you want, to keep it simple, is nice, even light. Here's some tips that will near guaranteed get you a decent photo, even if you leave your camera in full auto: 1. Get a tripod 2. DO NOT use a flash 3. Learn what 3 point lighting is 4. Light your food mostly evenly, don't have a dramatic difference between key and fill (maybe 1/2 stop - 1 stop at most). Soften the light as much as possible. If you need lights, cheaply, you can probably get away with home depot work lights bounced off walls. Be sure to adjust your camera's color balance. 5. Look at other food photos, copy other people's layouts as closely as possible, don't get creative 6. Learn how to use curves in photoshop, and try to get one point in the photo pure black, another pure white. At the very least use auto-adjust. DO NOT OVERDO IT with curves. 7. Focus All of those rules can be broken once you know what you're doing, but you don't know anything yet. These instructions will hopefully get you a fairly generic looking commercial food photo. If you practice, you can get 90% of what you need with this. These photos won't be amazing, but they'll be OK. That's a basic starting point for taking these photos. What that doesn't cover is all the weird ways they cook food for food photos, a lot of the time what they photograph isn't edible, and has been cooked specially to look good on camera.
- oz 15y ago
  This is EXACTLY what I was looking for. Thanks! On the point about how they cook for cameras, I remember reading years ago that most ice cream ads actually used mashed potatoes!

by oz 15y ago

andrewvc 15y ago

Yes, so here technique really matters. You want a photo that looks professional. So, my article was written with a fine art perspective, but you aren't making fine art, you're making a brochure. This is where you need to learn about lighting. What you want, to keep it simple, is nice, even light. Here's some tips that will near guaranteed get you a decent photo, even if you leave your camera in full auto: 1. Get a tripod 2. DO NOT use a flash 3. Learn what 3 point lighting is 4. Light your food mostly evenly, don't have a dramatic difference between key and fill (maybe 1/2 stop - 1 stop at most). Soften the light as much as possible. If you need lights, cheaply, you can probably get away with home depot work lights bounced off walls. Be sure to adjust your camera's color balance. 5. Look at other food photos, copy other people's layouts as closely as possible, don't get creative 6. Learn how to use curves in photoshop, and try to get one point in the photo pure black, another pure white. At the very least use auto-adjust. DO NOT OVERDO IT with curves. 7. Focus All of those rules can be broken once you know what you're doing, but you don't know anything yet. These instructions will hopefully get you a fairly generic looking commercial food photo. If you practice, you can get 90% of what you need with this. These photos won't be amazing, but they'll be OK. That's a basic starting point for taking these photos. What that doesn't cover is all the weird ways they cook food for food photos, a lot of the time what they photograph isn't edible, and has been cooked specially to look good on camera.

oz 15y ago
This is EXACTLY what I was looking for. Thanks! On the point about how they cook for cameras, I remember reading years ago that most ice cream ads actually used mashed potatoes!