Duets Shots - Edited

We have been commissioned by York College to produce advertising images of the food sold in Duets. We had two days to take these images using the equipment down in Duets, where we were able to get natural lighting through the window. We also used a flash light to help add more light to the images. We were told what food there was going to be and we had to research what they were and how we could present them. On the days of the shoot, the food was brought out to us and then we would arrange it on the plates and include napkins and cutlery to make the images look more interesting. I enjoyed taking images of food as it was something different and we had quite a lot of freedom as we were able to change the look of the food and also experiment with the composition and framing of the image.We then edited our images using Photoshop. I touched them up by using the spot healing and clone stamping tool to get rid of any unwanted marks. I also used the quick selection tool to sharpen certain areas and this added more depth to the image. I then adjusted the levels of the exposure, brightness, vibrance and contrast to really bring out the warm colours and make the food look more appertising. 

Here are my edited images: 

First of all I cropped this image, so you cant't see the foam boards in the background. I then used the spot healing tool to get rid of any marks/dirt. I then used the quick selection tool to sharpen different areas, such as the green stem on the tomatoes and different sections of the cheese on the potatoes to really make it look more realistic.

Again I cropped the image and I placed the bowl in the left third and the knife and fork in the lower right third to make it look more interesting. I used the spot healing tool to get rid of any unwanted marks and I used the clone stamp tool to remove the shadow of the fork on the knife. I then used the quick selection tool on the green leaf and some vegetables to sharpen them to make them stand out more.

This is one of my favourite images as there is quite a lot going on, we have the lines within the spoon and the bread and the circle of the bowl. We also have the nice yet subtle contrast in colours. Again I used the spot healing tool to remove any unwanted marks and I used the clone stamp to remove a line/shadow in the soup. I also adjusted the vibrancy levels which gave a nice browning/burning effect on the bread. I then added a slight white wash/faded effect to the image and darkened the shadows to make it look really different and unique - because in my research I noticed that quite a few of food photography images a quite dark.

This image was a tricky one when photographing as we couldn't find a way to arrange it that looked really appealing, I think it was because they're on separate plates. I tried using the clone stamp tool to add some more lasagne to the back of the bowl, however it didn't look very realistic, so I decided to just leave it as it was. Again, I turned up the vibrancy to really bring out the reds and yellows so it didn't look dull.

Again with this sticky toffee cake we struggled to make it look interesting/appetising - we also had the trouble of the ice cream melting. We used the red napkin ti add in more colour. I used the spot healing tool and clone stamp tool to erase where the ice cream had melted onto the plate to make it look tidier. I then used the quick selection tool on the 3 different areas of the cake (foreground, middle and background) using different radiuses and sharpnesses to try and add more depth of field.

In my last image I cropped it down so the rice would be in the top left third, I also cropped it to a rectangle shape rather than a square shape as it worked better with what was in the frame. I used the clone stamp tool to fill in a gap on the red sauce line and also to remove a shadow in the spoon. I then selected different pieces of veg (in the bowl and in the rice) to sharpen them to make them stand out better.