It's not that they think it looks good
It's that they don't care enough that it looks like shit
this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2026
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askchapo
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They see a way to not pay someone a wage and so they convince themselves it looks good. It's as simple as them not wanting to spend money on anything
This is the correct answer.
Was searching for mushroom pizza recently and came across some image generated abomination that looked like tentacles crawling across the surface with sprigs of broccoli scattered on it
Food photography is harder than it looks and the petit bourgeois tyrant abhors normal people things like "trying" and "learning". and its not like they'll pay an employee or contractor for the work!
also the entitlement of, when faced with a situation where their menu won't have pictures, due to their own self-imposed standards, they can't relent. a menu with words describing the dishes is letting the terrorists win.
a heap of misfortune upon their house
AI images of food just piss me off to no end. The amount of times I have seen generated images of food in delivery apps is too fucking much, and the worst part is that they don't even need to do that, they can just take any good photo from the internet and put it in there, like they already did 9 times out of 10, so now not only is this shit false advertising, but AI slop that makes no sense and doesn't even look good.
donate some food to the local highschool art class to have them draw your shit and then give the "winner" a $20 gift card and print that in your menu
kids' menu drawn by actual kids
Whenever I see an AI-generated food advertising sign in a shop I walk into the shop and steal it and walk away. If they print another I keep doing this until they replace it with something that isn't AI. Bullying works.
Artists are making stickers you can stick up to mock them, thinking of ordering some.
There's one I haven't gotten the opportunity to destroy yet that's egregiously ugly and has been stuck there for the last two years. Other people have multiple little "no ai" stickers over it and yet it's remained there unaffected in all its overcontrasty horror, leering at me every time I pass by. The stickers don't change a thing. It's got to go.
They're hungry to eliminate the working class by any means necessary
I think it is more that they think that they are "clever" or "gaming the system" by not doing any food photography and not needing to pay a professional photographer. They think they've found a shortcut to success because they don't realise that saving a few hundred on a food photographer will cost them thousands since their AI slop pictures aren't appealing to people.
Also, it's not like you need to hire a graphics designer and professional photographer to take a decent looking photo of a burger and drop it into a Word document
They don't really NEED to.
As long as your food doesn't look like shit just put it on a plate and shine a light on it. I've taken decent photos of food with my phone before. If you're just sandwich shop or cafe you really don't need a pro. Heck half the cafes I've been to don't even have images of the food items at all.
I've taken decent photos of food with my phone before.
Don't take this the wrong way, but I suspect that your photos are not actually advertisement quality 😅. In particular, I would assume that your phone is doing a lot of image processing on a crappy sensor, whereas a decent photographer should be able to use their camera (better sensor), lighting, and some better image processing to get a better image. Plus, your phone probably compresses the image before giving it to you.
If you're just sandwich shop or cafe you really don't need a pro. Heck half the cafes I've been to don't even have images of the food items at all.
Yeah, need is a bit too strong...but if you want to stand out from all the other local restaurants, it might make sense to hire a food photographer.
If the menu photos look like this, you know the food is gonna be good.
Food pictures on the menu have been my guiding star to good food and it hasn't steered me wrong yet. Idgaf if you have the money to hire a professional food photographer (fake sounding job) to make your food look good, but you snap a quick pic of a plate that's on the way out to be served? That shit is going to be fire basically guaranteed
you snap a quick pic of a plate that's on the way out to be served? That shit is going to be fire basically guaranteed
I agree with you and I wish that was the majority opinion.
I've had to argue with some of my friends about this, they almost always want to go to the most generic, suburban-coded, petite bourgeois slop houses they see while I have to argue that it's fine (actually better in most cases) for a restaurant to be a little rough around the edges. Like the kind of light shabbiness that comes from running a popular local restaurant for 15+ years. Those places are usually pretty busy while with the pristine place with a faux-industrial decorating motif are deserted, expensive, and bland as fuck
It's like how 3.6 stars is the sweet spot for restaurant ratings.
Crackers care way too much about staff behavior, things looking really bland and sterile like a Better Homes & Gardens cover, and other bullshit that has nothing to do with the quality of the food.
CW: egg
This is on my iPhone
Oooh that looks good 😋. If I was running a mom and pop place then yeah that would look pretty good on my menu, but I believe it is compressed (the magic of JPEG is that it's quite challenging to spot for natural images; I'm going based off the filename), which is technically not ideal for graphic design.
But if I was running a chain or corporate-facing restaurant, I would probably hire you to retake that photo with a better camera, better lighting, and a team of artists to make your food look better than life.
Frankly, it's a different approach. Your photo is good, but for advertising, people are conditioned to prefer better-than-real photos of food. Personally I prefer candid photos of real food like yours, but unfortunately our opinion is in the minority.
As long as your food doesn't look like shit
ⓘ Remember to enable JPEG-XL support in your browser, even on your phone!
There's a sandwich shop near me I've eaten at a few times. There sandwiches are okay and I assume I could take a picture of one and make it look appetizing with just my phone. They put out an AI menu recently and it makes all the food look like it's covered in ants.
Okay yeah, that's probably just fully buying into the slop. That's pretty bad. I was thinking more like fast food chains.
ⓘ Remember to enable JPEG-XL support in your browser, even on your phone!
Kinda makes it even more absurd, though. They're already using the copyright-obliterating machine anyway to create an image that is divorced from the reality of their product. Might as well just steal a nice pic of a real burger somebody else took.
Might as well just steal a nice pic of a real burger somebody else took.
Absolutely.
i'll admit i can tell the difference but i wouldn't say they need to do it lol
Yeah I guess need is a strong word, but I'm pretty sure there were/are enough businesses willing to pay to keep food photographers in business.
American tradition is to eat non-food legally designated as food, so this is just totally normal
Idk maybe the hyperrealism burger works on enough people, not me though.
The owner of my work has no fucking idea how to take a good picture of food. I'm pretty sure some people are just blind to aesthetics
They're designed to grab people's attention, nothing more. It has no artistic or representative value, it's purpose is to get you to look at their menu and see the offer, which will get your mind to conjure up the sensation of the food listed for them anyways, maybe they will also add a free 99 sale.
Yeah but most people seem repulsed by them. I don't think this strat is going to pay off well.
most people seem repulsed by them
I feel like there's a big chunk of people that just don't say anything about it because they either don't notice, they don't care, or even worse, they think it's cool...
We're all in plato's cave