Careem Food Photography: A Practical Shooting Guide

What Careem actually publishes about photos

Careem does not publish pixel dimensions, file size limits, aspect ratio rules or image guidelines for merchant food photos. There is no official spec sheet to build a shooting plan around, so any number you see quoted for Careem image sizes is not from Careem.

The practical approach is to prepare a strong square image and then check the upload screen in your Careem merchant portal or partner app at the moment you add or edit an item. That screen is the only reliable source for accepted format and any cropping it applies. If it accepts your file and shows the dish clearly, you have met the requirement that matters.

• Do not trust third-party size charts for Careem; they are not official
• Check the upload screen each time you add a new item, since portals change
• Keep a master file of each dish so you can re-export to any size later

Shoot for the thumbnail, not the poster

Most customers meet your food in a small list tile on a phone, often while walking or commuting. A photo that looks generous on a laptop can turn to mush at that size. Judge every shot by shrinking it on your phone to roughly the width of a thumbnail: if you cannot tell the dish apart from the one above it, reshoot or reframe.

That means fewer props and more food. Fill 70 to 80 percent of the frame with the plate or container, shoot from about 45 degrees for plated dishes with height, and go straight overhead at 90 degrees for bowls, mezze spreads, biryani and anything served in a round container. Leave a small margin around the food so a square crop does not clip the edges of the plate.

• 45-degree angle for burgers, sandwiches, grills and layered plates
• 90-degree overhead for curries, rice, soups, salads and sharing platters
• Fill most of the frame with food; cut background clutter
• Shoot one dish per image, not a table of several items

Light, color and honesty per dish

Daylight from a window to the side of the plate beats overhead kitchen lighting, which casts hard shadows and yellow-green color on rice, bread and white sauces. If you must shoot at night, use a diffused light at about 45 degrees from the side and keep it farther from the food than feels natural, then check the result on the phone screen rather than the camera.

Different dishes fail differently. Grilled meat needs a slight angle to show char without a black slab; creamy curries go flat under direct flash, so use side light and a small amount of contrast; fried food loses its texture within minutes, so shoot the first plate out of the fryer, not the tenth. Never swap ingredients, add extra portions or use a photo of a different dish: the image has to match what the customer receives or you will get complaints and refunds that no photo can fix.

Crop and export a kit you can reuse

Build one clean square master per dish, then export the sizes you need for your own channels: a wide 16:9 crop for a website banner, a 4:5 or 9:16 vertical for Instagram and Stories, and a square for menu tiles and QR menus. Keep the food centered in the master so every crop still contains the whole dish.

Export as JPG at high quality and keep file sizes modest so pages and menus load quickly on mobile data. Name files by dish and location, for example lamb-mandi-dubai-marina-01.jpg, so your team can find and replace them without opening each one. If Careem's upload screen rejects a file, re-export smaller or in a different format rather than reshooting.

Common review and listing pitfalls

Because Careem does not publish photo rules, rejections usually come from the listing itself rather than a documented image standard. The usual causes are a photo that does not match the item name or description, visible text, logos or watermarks on the image, a competitor's branding in frame, or a dish photographed with sides that are not included in the price.

Keep the listing consistent across markets too. A restaurant selling in Dubai, Riyadh and Karachi may show the same dish with different portion sizes or garnishes; photograph what is actually served at each location and label it accordingly. When you update a price or portion, update the photo in the same session so the two never drift apart. If a rejection reason is unclear, ask your Careem account contact rather than guessing at a file size.

A repeatable plan for your own channels

Set a simple monthly routine: one shoot day, five to eight dishes, a window or diffused light, a phone on a tripod at the same height for every plate. Reshoot only when a dish changes, and keep the master files in one shared folder your marketing and kitchen teams can both reach.

FoodPhoto takes a real photo of the restaurant's own dish and improves light, background and crop for menus, delivery apps and social, keeping the food as it is, and every photo comes as a kit of sizes. Use it for your website menu, Instagram, Google Business Profile, QR menu and print, and always upload your own real photo to Careem itself.