I've been making selections, copy layer of the selection, desaturating, masking out what I don't want real quick, then lowering the opacity to make it look realistic and not over done. What is your way of going about it? I'm not unhappy with mine, but I feel that there might be a better way(as there probably is for most things).

i make a seperate layer and paint white on soft light and raise or lower the opacity according to what you feel is good, pretty wuick and simple fix, sometimes if the teeth are actually stained, i dodge them a bit before painting the white layer.

In most cases, I use a hue/saturation adjustment layer. You can brighten by sliding the lightness slider to the right. Teeth a very commonly yellow. Remove the yellow by selecting yellow in the edit box, and the move the saturation slider to the left. This will remove the only the yellow.

For whitening eyes, soft light layer is my go to method..

For whitening the teeth I'll often use the same technique. If they're too yellow I'll use a color correction layer with the soft light layer.

Usually I mask the parts the needs to be corrected and then play with correcting the color to look it more realistic thats for me the simplest way :-)

A method I use about 90% of the time is to select the teeth using Quick Mask, Feather the selection about 2 pixels and copy to a new layer. Then I do a Levels Adjustment moving the black point of the output slider (left end of bottom slider) to the right about 10-30 units. Works very well. Eyes can be done the same way.

I sometimes create a selection, copy it to a new layer and then use curves to up the lightness, then paint back in using a mask

... select the teeth using Quick Mask, Feather the selection about 2 pixels ...

Duwayne, why are you adding the extra step of feathering? You should just use a soft brush in QM, surely?

You can brighten by sliding the lightness slider to the right. Teeth are very commonly yellow. Remove the yellow by selecting yellow in the edit box, and the move the saturation slider to the left. This will remove the only the yellow.

I totally agree. This is the best way to improve teeth in all but the worst cases. BUT ...

I use a hue/saturation adjustment layer.

... don't waste your time with an Adjustment layer. Just loosely select the teeth with Quick Mask and go straight to Hue/Sat. Remember, your Quick Mask doesn't have to be accurate at all, because lips and gums won't be affected by a yellow adjustment.

I don't know why you feel an adjustment layer is a waste of time. It does not take any additional time to do it this way, and by using an adjustment layer, my adjustment is non-destructive. In addition, I can re-open the adjustment and change the setting any time I like, or turn the adjustment off, or even discard it, if I don't want it any more. Ever wish you could undo an adjustment that you did 30, 40, or more steps ago? With an adjustment layer, you can. I rarely make an adjustment any other way.

I'm not suggesting Adjustment layers are a waste of time per se. I use them, though not as often as most.

I'm saying that an adjustment layer for teeth is a waste of time. If I used an adjustment layer for every tiny edit that I made, my document would be a quagmire of layers.

Another thing - I'm sick of this "adjustment layers are non-destructive" nonsense. Of course they're non-destructive while the image exists only in Photoshop, but eventually they need to be applied so the image can be used in the "real world" - ie web or printing. At that point, the "destruction" occurs.

i tried the davve Cox method today and it was a way quicker more accurate fix on yellow teeth- dave Rocks!

I'm another user of method Dave described. I learned it from a Scott Kelby a video borrowed from the library.

re: Layer quagmire potential
I know what you mean, Damo... It happens to me when I get lazy and don't label layers. It's a matter of workflow preferences and in my case wanting assurance I can make adjustments after the fact. I do in fact merge layers at certain points in a project to maintain layer sanity. It just depends.

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re: whitening eyes
* Add an adjustment layer (makes no difference which kind)
* Change layer blend mode from Normal to Screen
* Ctrl + I to invert the mask
* Airbrush white on mask where needed

Ultimate flexibility with mask; no increase in file size when using an adjustment layer.

I find the Hue/Sat. method that Dave mentioned gives the most realistic results because it leaves some yellow color in there. While there's no right way this is what works best for me.
As far as selecting, if you use an adj. layer you can click the mask button and paint in where you need the adjustment (much like quickmask) , and you can change that later if you want.

For eyes I use a masked curves adj. layers to click up a curve for eye's and will take the red curve in to reduce any redness in the eye. Also the info palette is a must to determine any color cast in the eye's.

Another thing - I'm sick of this "adjustment layers are non-destructive" nonsense. Of course they're non-destructive while the image exists only in Photoshop, but eventually they need to be applied so the image can be used in the "real world" - ie web or printing. At that point, the "destruction" occurs.

I really don't understand the statement, of course there only non destructive in a .PSD file. The purpose of the non-destructive adj. layers is that you can change a curve all day and not hurt the original image data, if you do a Cmd+M and keep adjusting the curves you are changing the image data and losing image data. They make changes possible without any data loss. You make changes in your .PSD file and export to a .jpg, .tiff for output to the web or print.

I love using adjustment layers because here great to come back later and re adjust and re tweak later.Some people don't like em and thats fine, but I wouldn't recommend them being a waste of time.

Another thing - I'm sick of this "adjustment layers are non-destructive" nonsense. Of course they're non-destructive while the image exists only in Photoshop, but eventually they need to be applied so the image can be used in the "real world" - ie web or printing. At that point, the "destruction" occurs.

no, they don't have to be applied..quite a few ad agencies will only accept psd files as they can be used with indesign without any problems...

Come on, let's not be naive. Eventually those PSDs are flattened by InDesign (at the point of PDF for output), at which point the adjustments are applied, and the gaps in the 8-bit histogram become reality.

I'm not saying it's a good thing - I hate those gaps as much as anyone. But I'm not labouring under the misapprehension that "adjustment layers keep me safe".

Come on, let's not be naive. Eventually those PSDs are flattened by InDesign (at the point of PDF for output), at which point the adjustments are applied, and the gaps in the 8-bit histogram become reality.

I'm not saying it's a good thing - I hate those gaps as much as anyone. But I'm not labouring under the misapprehension that "adjustment layers keep me safe".

Thats a good point. I just meant that they prevent image loss from excessive image manipulation with curves. It is true that they will have gaps sooner or later.

There are plug-ins (http://www.plugsandpixels.com/pearlywhites.html) that make this particular task quick and effortless.