Using food PNG images for menus, delivery banners and social posts

Good food photography is expensive and slow. A transparent PNG of a burger, a slice of cake or a cup of coffee lets a small restaurant, café or home business create menus and offers that look professional, without a photo studio.

This guide covers how to choose food images that look appetising, how to combine them on one design, and what to check before printing a menu.

What makes a food PNG look appetising

Not every food image works as a cut-out. Before you download, look for:

• Natural colour. Food that looks grey or overly orange will put people off, whatever the layout. Fresh greens, deep reds and golden browns are what make food look good.
• Texture. Crumbs, steam, droplets on a glass and grill marks make a picture feel real. Smooth, featureless food looks artificial.
• A complete edge. Plates and bowls should have clean, unbroken rims. Garnishes that are cut off at the edge are hard to hide.
• Enough resolution. For a full-width item on a printed A4 menu, look for images at least 1500 pixels wide.

You can browse a curated selection in our food and drink collection, where larger, cleaner images are shown first.

Build a menu board

A digital menu board or printed menu usually has one hero item and several supporting items.

1. Pick a hero. Choose the dish you most want to sell and give it the most space, often top-left or centre.
2. Group by category. Burgers together, drinks together, desserts together. Use the same image size within a group.
3. Align everything to a grid. Even spacing between items makes a menu look organised. In Canva, turn on rulers and guides; in Figma, use a layout grid.
4. Put prices close to their images. Readers should never have to guess which price belongs to which dish.

Keep text short. A name, one line of description and a price are enough on a board that people read from a distance.

Make a delivery or offer banner

Delivery apps and social ads are seen small and fast. A good offer banner has:

• One or two food items, large, overlapping the edge of the frame for energy.
• A single strong message, such as "2 for 1 today" or "Free delivery over 10 JOD".
• A contrasting background colour: warm reds and yellows suit fast food, earthy greens suit healthy food, dark backgrounds suit coffee and desserts.
• A clear call to action, such as "Order now".

Tilting a burger or a pizza slice by 10 to 15 degrees makes a banner feel more dynamic than a perfectly level image.

Combine several dishes convincingly

Food images from different sources rarely match perfectly. Three things help them look like one shoot:

Same light direction. If the highlights on one dish are on the left and on another on the right, flip one of them horizontally.

Same shadow. Add a soft contact shadow under every plate, using identical settings. Our guide to adding shadows to transparent PNGs shows how in Canva, Figma and Photoshop.

Same viewing angle. Top-down images (flat lays) and side views do not mix well. Choose one angle for the whole design.

If one image has a slightly different colour temperature, a gentle warm or cool filter on that image alone usually fixes it.

Social media posts

For Instagram and Facebook:

• Use 1080 × 1080 (square) or 1080 × 1350 (portrait) for feed posts, and 1080 × 1920 for stories.
• Leave space at the top and bottom of stories, where profile names and reply boxes cover the design.
• Use the same background colours and fonts in every post, so followers recognise your brand before reading the name.
• Show the food large. A dish filling 60 to 70 percent of the frame is more tempting than a small plate surrounded by text.

Our Canva tutorial walks through uploading, layering and exporting PNGs for social posts.

Printing a menu

Printing has different rules from screens:

• Resolution: aim for 300 DPI at the printed size. A dish printed 8 cm wide needs about 950 pixels.
• Colour: printers use CMYK, so very bright reds and greens on screen may print duller. Ask your printer for a proof if colour matters.
• Bleed: extend background colours 3 mm past the edge of the page so no white lines appear after trimming.
• Paper: gloss paper makes food look richer; matt paper is easier to read under bright restaurant lights.

Our guide to using PNG images for print explains resolution and DPI in more detail.

Be honest about what you sell

Stock food images are for illustration. If a picture shows something noticeably different from what the customer receives, such as a larger portion or a different ingredient, it can damage trust quickly. Many restaurants add a small line such as "serving suggestion" under illustrative images, and switch to photos of their own dishes once they have them.

Also avoid images that show a recognisable brand's packaging or logo, unless you are actually selling that brand.

Quick checklist

• Fresh colour, visible texture, clean edges.
• One hero item, consistent sizes within each group.
• Matching light direction, shadows and viewing angle.
• 300 DPI at print size, 3 mm bleed.
• Images that honestly represent what you serve.

With a handful of good food PNGs and a consistent layout, even a small kitchen can produce menus and offers that look as polished as a chain's.