Got hungry.

[erikahawkins]

I love donuts! Krispy Kreme, that is.

not a pro. but i want to learn food photog someday!

 

[jowensphoto]

I suggest trying a more simple setup. There's a lot going on here, and the images is struggling because of it. Try taking a shot of just the cupcake with the KitKat. I think you'll have more luck.

 

[HughGuessWho]

I agree. Excellent start, though. Keep shootin'.

 

[snowbear]

Thanks - I just gained a half pound looking at that!!

 

[Xyloz]

Okay, As you say your new, here are a few things to look out for on a technical stand point.

Your at 96dpi for a kicker most pro print stuff is about 300-350dpi on output
(You can't be blamed for that as typical web resolution is about 72-96dpi but it's always a thing to look out for when uploading, because your image is getting bit crushed to 72-96dpi)
Why is that bad?

Well PSD or GIMP or what ever you use has off line bit crushing options via "save as". At least you can see what it will look like uploaded because online bit crushing is the worst kind so control it off-line first to keep the quality up and select the types of bit crushing you want for your style.

Be aware online bit crushing creates a soft focus by default so if you want clean crisp images, do you're bit crushing off-line!
So if you're image here isn't looking as crisp as your RAW that might be a bit of a hint

Secondly shooting 35mm (On the crop sensor on your 500D) is actually 56mm so you're F-stop is going to be tiny anyway by default.
So already your shooting 40% less area than you think, and your focus area will be tiny.
Tripod the camera and up the f-number quite high to get more of the subject range in focus, pull the camera further away to get more in the shot as you have a lot of content in there that would be an interesting to capture a lot more in focus to allow the image to have a crisp effect.

On the flip side if you want individual food items to stand out, create more distance between foreground/backdrop objects in contrast to your focal point making sure your out of focus (Bokeh) objects have clear discernible outlines and bold colours for crisp Bokeh effects and change your F number down to 1.8 or lower if you can to really crank up the blur.

Cancel out the shadow from you're key light, last thing you need is a huge dark mark from the peaks and troughs of the subject in this case the peak being the chocolate and the troughs being the holes in the doughnut. So a high lamp for over all brightness and side lamps to control your natural / key light and you should get a nice even soft gradient of shadow that isn't obtrusive to your image.

Finally and most importantly enjoy your doughnuts

Great image
At the end of the day it's just advice,
You can do what ever the F**K YOU WANNA DO