Sometimes you have an amazing recipe but you can’t take a photo because doesn’t look great. There is a way to fix some accidents or make your food look better in Photoshop.
This dessert is a chocolate panna cotta with carob powder. I wanted to have it on a plate decorated with raspberries. When I tried to take it out from the glass and put it on the plate, it cracked. I knew I was going to retouch it in Photoshop. So I took photos of the dessert and then I fixed them in the computer.
I used cloning in Photoshop to get rid of the cracks and reflections of the windows on the plate.
Clone stamp is a great tool and easy to use. The Clone Stamp Tool paints with a sampled pixels of an image. You need practice to get it done nice.
Create a new layer before making changes with Clone Stamp tool. Working in a new layer means that you are not changing the underlying pixels of your image and in addition, you can delete it if you don’t like it.
To create a new layer just press Shift+Ctrl+N (Shift+Cmd+N on Mac). To make a duplicate of the background layer press Ctrl+J (Cmd+J on Mac).
You can work with both types of layers. I worked with a duplicate one and is named “Cloning”. You can see it circled with black on the right side of the next photo.
When you use Clone Stamp always zoom in. It will help you work on a much greater level of detail. If your changes look good when you zoom in, then when you zoom out, you will not distinguish them.
Choose from the Toolbox the Clone Stamp Tool. In the Options bar, set the tool’s tip size and hardness.
As you can see, I was in the middle of cloning. During the process you will change the size of the brush depending on the area you are working.
Hardness determines the level to which the cloning will blend in with the surrounding pixels. In general, keep the hardness level at 0% and the edge will blend in the surroundings.
The Clone Stamp tool is all about repetition – you just need to do it in such a way that the viewer doesn’t notice it.
To use the tool, you set a sampling area you want to copy the pixels from and paint over another area. Changing the size of the brush gives you precise control over the size of the clone area.
This is the final photo. As you can see, all the reflections and cracks are gone.
Keep in mind that 90% of my photos are done from the camera. Just apply a little bit of contrast and lighting if needed. I use cloning only in special cases. With this panna cotta I have other photos in the glass, so for my recipe I will not use this one. I managed to get out of the glasses only one, so I got lucky. But, if you made a big one and it cracked this retouching is the best solution.
You can also use cloning stamp to remove stains, reflections, small defects,etc. Keep taking photos and cooking.
Cooking Without Limits 
Cool. I’m just learning to do that kind of thing. It’s nice to see a good example.
I am happy to help
Yeah I agree. I am a visual learner so I love examples. Thanks dor giving back to the community.
You are welcome
Wow, this is brilliant – working with food is so dicey, and easily heartbreaking which something inevitably goes wrong. It’s a do-over with having to actually do it over. Thanks.
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Thanks for the tips! I use GIMP instead of Photoshop but it has a lot of the same features and this was really helpful 🙂
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That’s Photoshop put to great use. Excellent tip – thank you!
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Looks just as delicious! :)) gotta love photshop, great tutorial.
Thank you
‘Sometimes you have an amazing recipe but you can’t take a photo because doesn’t look great’ – exactly! Thank you! I was so busy last time and made my photos in hurry. In result only a few people liked really tasty candies 😉 I understand I don’t like myself how they looked on the photo 😉
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Just a though 🙂 While I understand the need for beautiful photos and the fact they do draw people to a potentially amazing recipe, somehow this doesn’t sit right. I’m wondering if it wouldn’t be better to show a cracked cake, a floppy muffin or a burnt chicken. Because these things happen to all of us and that’s just life in the kitchen. Or that’s just life! And, in the end, I bet your cracked cake was as delicious as a perfectly polished one.
True. I have been asked to write about Photoshop. This was an example. As I said in my post I have photos with the dessert in the glasses. Some like the ones with the cracks, some don’t. The taste was the same. What you do with your photos is your problem. I am trying to help the bloggers who want to fix the cracks.
Please don’t take my comment negatively, it was not meant like that. I really like the work you do 🙂
I did’t take your comment negatively. Sorry, if it sounded like that. I should thank you. You made me realize that I should write that is the post for the persons who want to do that, not that retouching is a necessity.
https://mynotebookbybani.wordpress.com/blog/
pay a visit. ty 🙂
These are great tips! Thank you 😀
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What an informative post Gabi. Thanks for sharing!
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Fantastic. The beauty of the final shot is that you didn’t create something altogether different from the original composition. A great final composition.
Thank you
Thank you for the info. Maybe, I am just greedy but they both look good to me. 🙂
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I love food photography and your tricks are cool! Thanks!
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This looks amazing and it’s so helpful to have the step by step on how you created the final photo! Thank you for taking the time to share this…I will definitely have to try this out next time I need to do some photo editing.
Christine
Thank you
Nice info. I use Gimp instead of Photoshop, and the clone tool is amazingly helpful. 🙂
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Great tips! Thanks for sharing.
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Great tip, my friend
Thank you
Thank you. Great post.
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Aha! SO I’m not a terrible chef after all! I always think my results with its tiny imperfections mean I’m doing something wrong. 😉 This is super neat, I’m TERRIBLE at photoshop, but luckily I’m not a food blog!
I like photos were the food is missing from the pot or even empty dirty pots. They make me think the pot is empty because food was so good.
So true!
Thanks for sharing
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This is soo helpful, thank you so much! – Kat
nice lesson!
if only photoshop
could help the
actual food i cook 🙂
Practice will help. Practice helped me a lot.
you’d think with
all my dietician training
i’d make things
look nicer 🙂
Great tips. I am not good at Photoshop but you have inspired me to use it more.
This is great! Thank you for sharing, it’s really useful to know how to fix these things. I recently dressed a bowl beautifully and then only later realised my bowl was chipped so it would have been great to have been able to photoshop it!
Thank you. I have a glued plate which I love to use and I am retouching it in the photo because it takes away your eyes from the food.
This is extremely helpful to me! I don’t have a great camera and am not sure I want to invest just yet. I don’t know if I will keep going with blogging, I do like it so far and am learning a lot from folks like you. Thanks for letting me see behind the curtain!
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One can do these things with the app Paint also. Like you said, zoom way up.
Good fix for the crack, but personally, I prefer with the window reflections. 🙂
Paint is also great for retouching.
Great advice, I’m gonna need that. Thanks again for dropping by.
Thank you
Thank you for sharing!
You are wlcome
Very insightful.. thanks for the great post 🙂
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Very clever.learned something new.thanks.
Thank you
This was great 👍 especially for a new food blogger like me. I’m still getting organized and discovering recipes of my own I can post. My first food photo attempts were very poor. Thanks 🙏 for these tips.
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Yaaaaaaas wow
High quality content here! Thank you for sharing!
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I see what you mean about using photoshop as an editing tool. I was told to use LR. At the time I didn’t know anything about editing. Perhaps I’ll try the Photoshop monthly subscription. Thanks so much for sharing and responding to your fans.
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Some great advice again! Thank you!
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Perfect example how to make perfect food perfect on a photo!
Thank you
Congratulations! What useful tips, no wonder your photography is so great, what a lot of applied knowledge and hard work. I bookmarked this one, thanks!
Thank you