Paintings of fruit and other foods were a way for the Old Masters to show off their skill. Human vision is most discerning when appraising the edibility of potential foods. For example, we can see more shades of green than any other color and that probably helped with foraging. In artwork, food either looks right or it looks disgusting, which literally means ‘not good to eat.’

Here are 8 simple ways to make your food pictures better:

1 – Photograph the food in natural light. Shade or diffused sunlight is the best. The full spectrum of color that is in sunlight brings out all the best colors in food.   Avoid, if possible, fluorescent light which tends to make food look washed out and bland.  Look out for hard shadows which you would get in direct sunlight — better to move to the shade or have a friend hold a menu up to block the direct sunlight.

2 – Photograph the plate BEFORE you take any bites of food. Ideally, the picture should look “ready to eat” rather than half-eaten.  A fork or spoon in the picture is suggestive of food that is ready to be eaten right now and encourages the viewer to take that mental bite.

3 – Shoot straight down on the plate unless the food is stacked, in which case shoot at the angle you would have if the plate was placed in front of you, about 45-degrees or so.  The straight down shot avoids having things in the picture that are distracting and is more natural angle for close shots.

4 – Shoot close or crop tightly. Most of us are seeing pictures on fairly small screens like phones or tablets. If you can’t see the detail on the food then the picture is going to have much less impact.

5 – If you are the one cooking, get some color on your food, preferably golden brown.  A little butter and hot skillet can transform ordinary foods into mouth-watering show stoppers.  Think of tuna salad on white bread versus that same tuna salad on toasted sourdough or on grilled (skillet) bread. The color sets our expectations higher.

6 – Look out for greasy or reflective spots on the plates. In close pictures everything will show so take a careful look for the odd crumb or hair that spoils an otherwise great pic.  Wipe the rim of the plate with a paper napkin, not your finger.

7 – Avoid plates and flatware that have a lot of pattern or more than 2 colors as they will distract from the food. The plate and flatware should be secondary to the food so unless the food is white, a white plate works fine for most foods. If you have white food (rice, bread, eggs, milk, etc) then an off-white plate or perhaps a very dark plate will help the food stand out.

8 – Having garnish or sauce in the frame expands our mental playground. That little ramekin of ketchup gives us one more thing to taste with our eyes. One of the toughest things to photograph is any food that is served in a bowl — stir fry, soup or pasta — because it lacks definition.  Something like a grain bowl generally needs to have a fan of avocado slices or bean sprouts on top; something that shows us that there are a lot of good tastes in bowl by isolating one or two of them.

To your eyes I say “Bon Appetit!”