Food and hospitality Lightroom presets

Food gets photographed under the worst mixed light in the business. A warm pendant over the table, a window three metres away, a kitchen strip somewhere behind, all of it landing on a plate whose whites have to stay white and whose sauce has to stay the colour it was reduced to. Correct for the room and the food goes grey; correct for the food and the room turns orange.

Dark rooms and bright rooms want opposite handling. On a low-key plate the photograph lives in the bottom third of the range, and the shadow floor has to stay open enough to show the rim of the dish and the edge of the table. A daylight brunch is the reverse, with linen and pale ceramic sitting near the top of the range where a careless curve loses their texture entirely.

Dark Plate and Cocktail Bar Night by Slateamber is thirty-six presets across those two evening subjects, the low-lit plate and the bar after dark, worked on a linen table, a diner booth and a glass being poured. Table Service by Savoryhue is fifteen for the daytime side of the same trade, a bakery counter, a brunch table, produce on a market stall.

A restaurant shooting its room as well as its menu will use both. Slateamber on its own covers the evening service.