Austin Menu Photography for Print, QR Menus and Delivery Apps

Plan the shoot around Austin's daylight

Austin's noon sun sits about 83 degrees above the horizon in late June and about 36 degrees in late December. High summer sun means a north-facing window gives soft, even light most of the day, while a south or west window throws hard bars across the plate by mid-morning. In winter the low sun reaches further into the room, so the same table that worked in July may be in direct sun in January.

Pick one table and mark its position with tape. Shoot the same category in the same session so every barbecue plate or every taco gets identical light. Use a white foam board opposite the window to bounce light back into the shadow side, and flag direct sun with a black card rather than moving the table.

• June to August: shoot 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. or after 4 p.m.; avoid noon when the sun is nearly overhead and shadows are short and hard.
• November to February: shoot 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., when the low winter sun is strongest; watch for direct beams reaching deeper into the room.
• March, April, September, October: mid-morning works; test the table position again each season.
• Overcast days give the most even window light at any time of year; batch heavier items then.
• Keep the camera at roughly 45 degrees for menu tiles and 90 degrees overhead for flat items like tacos or a plate of queso.

Batch shooting a full menu

Shoot by station, not by menu order. Group all fried items, all grilled items, all cold plates and all drinks so the kitchen sends them in waves and you are not waiting between plates. A printed shot list taped to the wall, in the same order as the menu sections, keeps the line moving and stops items being missed.

Shoot each dish in a set: one 90-degree overhead, one 45-degree hero, and one tight detail of the texture or the side. That gives you a square for the QR menu, a wider crop for a delivery card and a close-up for social from the same plate. Work at a consistent distance so the tile set looks like one menu, not a scrapbook.

• Wipe the rim and check for fingerprints before every frame.
• Shoot three to five frames per angle, then move on; do not review on camera mid-session.
• Keep a notebook or spreadsheet row per dish as you shoot: item name, station, angle, file prefix.
• Shoot drinks and sides last; they are quick and fill gaps while hot food is being plated.
• For barbecue, shoot the cut face and the bark separately; the sliced brisket shot and the sandwich shot need different framing.

Naming and storing files so menus stay in sync

Name every file with the menu item, not the camera's default number. A pattern like brisket-sandwich_45deg_v2 tells you what it is, which angle it is and which version is current without opening it. Keep the dish name in English and, if your menu is bilingual, add the Spanish name in the same file name or in a column beside it in your tracking sheet.

Keep one master folder per menu version and archive the old one when prices or portions change. When a dish changes, reshoot it and bump the version number; do not overwrite the old file, because the printed menu in a drawer may still show the old plate.

• Format: item-name_angle_version, all lowercase, hyphens not spaces.
• Keep a spreadsheet with columns for item, photo file, menu section, price, calories and platforms used.
• Store originals and edited versions in separate folders.
• When an item is discontinued, move its files to an archive folder rather than deleting them.

Sizes for print, QR menus and delivery apps

One photo has to survive three very different crops. A printed menu tile is usually small and square-ish; a QR menu opens on a phone at roughly 1:1 or 4:5; a delivery app card is often a wide crop that cuts the top and bottom of a vertical shot. Frame the dish with margin on all four sides so the wide crop still shows the whole plate.

Export at the largest size you will need and downsize from there. Keep a 16:9 version for website banners and a 1:1 version for tiles, and check each one on a phone screen at arm's length before publishing.

• Shoot with headroom so a 16:9 crop does not cut the plate edge.
• Check the delivery app's own upload screen for its current crop and file requirements; platforms change these without notice.
• This site publishes spec pages for Uber Eats, DoorDash, Grubhub and BentoBox for the United States; check those before exporting.

Calorie labels and photo accuracy

In the United States, restaurant chains with 20 or more locations must show calorie counts for standard menu items, and FDA guidance covers online menus as well as menu boards. A photo must match the item the calories describe. If the photo shows a larger portion, extra side or a different preparation than the one the calorie figure was calculated for, the label and the image disagree.

Shoot the standard portion exactly as it is served and weighed for the calorie calculation. Do not add garnish, an extra side or a bigger scoop for the camera. If a dish comes in two sizes, photograph each size separately and label them separately.

Keeping photos current when the menu changes

Menu changes in Austin follow the seasons and the produce: summer specials, fall game and squash dishes, holiday menus, spring vegetables. Put a reshoot date in the spreadsheet for every item that changes seasonally or when a supplier changes. When a price changes, the photo usually stays, but when a portion or a side changes, reshoot.

For the restaurant's own channels, website menu, Instagram, Google Business Profile, QR menu and print, FoodPhoto can take a real photo of the restaurant's own dish and improve light, background and crop, keeping the food as it is, and deliver it as a kit of sizes. That is useful for the tiles that repeat across those channels. It does not generate a different dish and cannot guarantee approval by any platform, so always check each platform's upload screen and rules.

• Review photos every time the menu is reprinted or the delivery menu is edited.
• Keep a short list of items that never photograph well and plan a test shoot for them first.
• Assign one person to update the spreadsheet and one to update the platforms, so nothing is half-changed.