The Journey of a Restaurant Food Image

By: Caitlyn Knezevic | March 16, 2021 | 3 Min Read

Your new menu items were just photographed. Now what?

It’s springtime, and you just finished curating a new seasonal menu for your upscale restaurant. Time to ask the chefs to cook up some of those dishes to take fresh new photos for the restaurant’s website. Once the photographer arrives, the journey of a food image begins. 

First, the image is captured digitally onto a memory card. Raw pixel data that make up the image are stored and then uploaded onto a computer. The group of images are viewed upon a monitor to cull the collection and determine which images will look the most appealing to customers.

Next, the images are brought into a photo editing software program to enhance the digital imagery to look its best. Each pixel of the image changes slightly to reflect the overall appearance of the edits. The images are still quite large at this point, retaining incredible amounts of data.

Once the images are edited, they now need to be saved for usage. Without a dynamic imaging tool such as LiquiFire® OS, this process is done manually within the photo editing software. Designers need to think about all of the places the image is going to be used—website carousel, digital menu, printed menu, social media campaigns, etc.—and then figure out the optimal size, image ratio, and formats for each. It is not enough to have one large image (unless you’re using LiquiFire Resolve™), as it is important to only show users the size they need in order to maximize optimization.

Creating the numerous sizes and formats still isn’t a perfect way to accomplish this necessary requirement. It creates large, duplicative image libraries which can be difficult to maintain. It takes time for the designer to think about, create, and export all of these image formats. Additionally, it does not always fully provide enough image sizes and formats to present the best image every time. There will be occasions that the image is either too big and doesn’t load, or is too small and pixelated.

After all of the image variations are created, the image is then uploaded into your business’s database for the website developers to access. The website is updated in order to reflect the changes necessary for the springtime menu updates.

Now, for the real world application. Imagine someone has just come to the website with the goal of ordering takeout. The user lands on the homepage, navigates to the online menu to view their options, they add their selections to a digital shopping cart, then finalize their order. To ensure the order went through, they receive an email receipt and order confirmation.

Think about all of the places that an image must appear throughout this process. First, on the website homepage, then the online menu, the digital shopping cart, and their email confirmation. This makes four placements alone for one image, and each has its own requirements for size, format, and pixel ratio. Ultimately, this means there are at least four variations for this one image. But that doesn’t take into consideration any print materials or advertising campaigns where your business also uses these images. Now, consider the entire menu—that means hundreds of image variations to manage and keep track of.

And this is only for the spring menu. You’ll have to do it all again for summer.  

When you think about the journey of an image, remember the number of times it transforms to meet your needs. It’s not just “take a picture and we’re done.” There’s editing, creating variations, managing, presenting, and so much more. Let’s give those menu item images a little more credit. In a mobile environment where your patrons can’t smell the aromas coming from your kitchen, or spy a plate of food on a neighboring table, it is important to have clean, sharp, delicious images to entice your customers with your culinary creations.