Eat24 Food Photography: What Restaurants Should Do Now

What happened to Eat24 and what it means for your photos

There are no current Eat24 pixel specs, file-size rules or image guidelines to follow, because the brand is retired and does not publish any. Any page quoting exact Eat24 dimensions is describing a platform that no longer accepts uploads. Grubhub does not inherit Eat24's published rules either; it has its own upload screen and its own guidance.

Practically, this means two things. First, if a listing of yours still points to an old Eat24 URL or an old photo set, check where that listing now resolves and re-upload current photos there. Second, stop treating any single delivery platform as the only destination for your food photography. The photos you shoot should serve your own website menu, your Google Business Profile, your QR menu, Instagram and whichever delivery apps you use.

Because no official Eat24 specs exist, do not trust a fixed number like 800x800 or 5MB as an Eat24 requirement. If you are uploading to Grubhub or another live platform, open the actual upload screen and read the accepted formats and size limits shown there before you export.

A shooting plan that works for delivery, menus and social

Shoot once, crop many times. Set your phone or camera to its highest resolution and shoot slightly wider than the final image so you have room to crop to square, vertical and wide formats without cutting into the plate. Leave roughly 10 percent empty space around the dish on every side.

Use one light source and keep it consistent. A window with indirect daylight on one side of the dish, plus a white foam board or sheet of parchment on the other side to bounce light back, gives even illumination without harsh shadows. Avoid overhead ceiling lights mixed with daylight, because the color casts fight each other and the food looks gray or orange.

Shoot at a low angle for stacked dishes like burgers, sandwiches and layer cakes, roughly 20 to 30 degrees above the table, so you see the height. Shoot straight down at 90 degrees for bowls, pizzas, salads and flat plates where the pattern of the food is the point. A 45-degree angle is the safe middle for most plated entrées.

Fill the frame. Move the camera closer rather than zooming, so the dish occupies about 70 to 80 percent of the frame. Delivery thumbnails are small, and a plate shot from too far away reads as an empty table. Wipe the rim of the plate, remove stray crumbs and check that no sauce drips onto the tablecloth in frame.

• Shoot each dish at three angles: 90 degrees overhead, 45 degrees, and 20 to 30 degrees for tall items.
• Shoot a square 1:1 version, a vertical 4:5 for Instagram, and a wide 16:9 for website banners.
• Photograph the exact portion a customer receives, not a styled-up version with extra sides.
• Take one photo of the dish in its packaging if it travels, so customers know what arrives.
• Shoot during service prep when the kitchen is calm, not during the dinner rush.

Crops and file prep for every destination

Different destinations need different crops, and the crop should be decided per dish. A long flatbread needs a wider crop than a tall cocktail. Build a square 1:1 master for delivery apps and menu grids, then derive the vertical and wide versions from the same original file rather than reshooting.

For your own website menu, use the square master at a modest display size so pages load quickly, and keep the original high-resolution file archived. For print menus, the same photo needs far more resolution than a screen, so never delete the originals after exporting small versions.

Export as JPG at high quality for photographs. PNG is better only for graphics with text or transparency, and food photos rarely need it. Check file sizes against the specific upload screen you are using, since limits differ between platforms and change over time.

Review pitfalls: what gets photos rejected or ignored

The most common problem is a photo that does not match the dish. If the image shows garnishes, sides or a portion size the customer will not receive, expect complaints and refund requests even if the photo is technically sharp. Photograph what the kitchen actually plates.

Text overlays, watermarks, logos, price stickers and collages are routinely rejected or trimmed by delivery platforms, and they look dated on your own channels too. Keep the image to the food, the plate and a clean surface.

Heavy filters are a second trap. A saturated orange filter on a green salad or a cool blue cast on a steak misrepresents color, and customers notice when the food arrives. Correct white balance rather than applying a look.

If a platform states that it does not accept AI-generated images, respect that. Shoot and upload your own real photo of your own dish to that platform, and do not describe any file as approved or ready for a platform you have not uploaded to. Approval is always the platform's decision.

Where to use your photo set beyond delivery

Your own channels give you more control than any marketplace. Use the square master in your website menu and QR menu, the vertical crop on Instagram, and a wide crop as the cover image on your Google Business Profile. Keep the dish name and price in the page text, not baked into the image.

Update seasonally. When a dish changes ingredients, portion or plating, reshoot it the same week rather than leaving an old photo live for a year. A short, repeatable session each season is cheaper than a large reshoot later.

FoodPhoto takes a real photo of your own dish and improves light, background and crop for menus, delivery apps and social while keeping the food as it is, and every photo comes as a kit of sizes. It does not invent a different dish and cannot guarantee approval by any platform, so always confirm requirements on the upload screen you are using.