NEW Food Porn (Dessert Edition) from today's shoot at my new Italian restaurant client
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I don't "doctor" the photos...the only thing I did to these in Photoshop was run "auto adjust" (which usually brings them back to what I actually saw in front of me). I bump up the saturation by about 20% (this depends on the quality of the photo and what happens after "auto adjust"
. I then run "smart sharpen" to make sure they are nice and clear. The photos I posted here are all 1000x750, which is roughly 3x smaller than the original shot.
The camera I have right now is a much better one than I had when I started out. My dad was a photographer, he had one of the really old school cameras with the film plates. I logged many hours in a darkroom with the tongs and trays and clothespins. What he taught me helped me develop my "eye." As I mentioned earlier, I know a professional studio photographer could probably blow me out of the water, but the results you see here (and in the other photos I've shared on DU) match what my "eye" sees.
The big thing, though, is that what I do works. My restaurant clients tell me that people have come in because of what they've seen on the Website. It's not about me or my "art," it's about getting backsides of paying customers into seats in their restaurant, and I have been successful with that.
My suggestion to you, based on what you've shared with me, is to figure out what your "eye" is, and just keep experimenting with it until it becomes second nature for you, like it is with me.
I highly recommend "Lynda Dot Com" (http://www.lynda.com/). They have a number of tutorials on Photoshop and photography as well, and you can get a free trial membership. I am 100% self-taught, relying on books, tutorials and "sweat equity." Lynda Dot Com helped me immensely, and perhaps you would find them to be of value as well.
Good luck!
I was floored each time my customer brought one out of the kitchen.
That's definitely the goal.
Great job! 
And licked every plate.
... I still had to take four steps before the rest of me moved! 
but just put the sauce in a cup for me, for crying out loud!
What is it with this drizzly bullshit? I want some god damned sauce and I want enough to dip my cake in, for fucks sake.
(Beautiful shots, BTW. Just tell the chef that when A Heretic shows up, get out a small ramekin and fill that fucker!)
And thanks for the kind remarks.
It tasted every bit as good as it looks. Hard to believe but they make everything there from scratch.
My client said "I'm going to bring these out one at a time because we use fresh whipped cream and it can't sit around for too long."
This place is a gem...I am Italian and I know how to cook and that makes me an extreme food snob when comes to eating in an Italian place but I have seen them making the fresh pizza dough and hand-rolling garlic knots and every other function in the kitchen.
Because it is out of our reach! 
While I was taking the shots, one of the employees came from the kitchen with a huge rolling cart of stackable trays. Each tray held 12 rounds of freshly made pizza dough. They have one of those HUGE industrial dough machines in the back. I'm guessing there were 12 trays and they WILL use all of the dough while it is fresh...they store it in a cooler similar to the ones you see for Cokes. One of the first things my client told me is "we don't own a freezer."
I'm not sure if you saw the thread I posted a week or two ago with the non-dessert items:
...you are an asshole!
I sometimes say that the reno channels and the food channel are now our porn. Speaking for my wife and I only, of course.
I would eat absolutely any of those, and with some incentive, all of them. In one sitting.
Consequences be damned.
If people look at my food shots and say "Oh, that looks nice," I haven't done my job.
At the end of the shoot, my client made everything you see here available to my girlfriend and I and her staff. She let me take first pick, and my girlfriend and I were on the same page...we wanted that cheesecake, but not while the Tiramisu was sitting next to it.
We went in the other room were we were reviewing my work on my laptop and sat down to enjoy it. One of the employees shot around the corner like the building was on fire and had a distressed look on her face. She asked "CAN I HAVE THE OREO MOUSSE?" My client said "Sure" and she said "I think (some other employee) wants it too" and my client and said "No problem, take it, and if they want it too, I'll just make another one."
That's who I am dealing with here, a wonderful person, the perfect client.
The only one I think is beyond my ability to consume that is the huge chocolate slab. I told my client "I could handle maybe a THIRD of that" and she smiled and said "Yeah...I know." I've had those dense "death by chocolate" things before. It's like downing a six pack of Red Bulls.
THIS client has offered something EVERY time we've gone there. The day of the shoot it was two slices of their Margherita Pizza and the Tiramisu you see above. My contact is just a wonderful person outside of her generosity, though...always upbeat and kind and gregarious and THIS is the client you aim for 100% of the time. Sometimes you get them, sometimes you don't. She's they 10 on a 10 scale. I also recently signed a Tattoo parlor and the owner and his wife are another pair of "10s." It's a 35 mile drive to his shop...he knows this. I went there the other day to help him with something and as we were saying our goodbyes, he reached into his wallet and smiled and said "Here...let me give you a tip" and handed me $20. I have been doing this for 15 years. No client has ever done that.
If it wasn't for the fact that it has been a L-O-N-G time since I have had REAL Tiramisu, I would have definitely sampled that.
