How to whiten teeth, nails, and eyes

Gerald McClaren · #1 08-20-2006, 08:10 PM

I've hand colored this beautiful photo, however, when I used the eraser to erase her nails, eyes, and teeth of the excess coloring, they all turned a grayish color. I would like to know how can I bring the nails, eyes, and teeth back to their original color. Thanks.

PatrickB · #2 08-21-2006, 03:44 AM

The eyes look ok to me?

For nails and teeth you can use hue/saturation layers, check colorize, turn the saturation down to 1-3% and adjust the jue to fit the rest of the picture. That should do what you need.

I just gave it a try but the picture is so small it's almost impossible to mask the gums so you can make it more realistic.

Ken Fournelle · #3 08-21-2006, 08:10 AM

Gerald,

You could try this: Make an empty layer at the top of your palette stack, set the blending mode to Soft Light and with a soft, white brush at 5-10% opacity go over the darker teeth and whites of the eyes. Be careful, over doing it will make the image look un-natural. I heard a portrait tip one time that said the teeth and sclera should be about the same level of whiteness to look natural.

k

Gerald McClaren · #4 08-21-2006, 10:11 AM

Patrick to make the larger, just click on it. I tried both of you guys method and it work. Thanks for the info.

Gerald McClaren

tinamou · #5 08-27-2006, 06:37 AM

Hi Gerald,

Attached is the adjustment that I made following on from your requirements for nails, teeth and eye whitening. the easiest method that I use and would recommend is as follows :

Open Picture, duplicate and zoom in to the required area. edit in quick mask ("Q" on keyboard as shortcut), soft paint brush around 13px, brush over teeth, etc, edit back to standard mode ("Q" again on keyboard), select/inverse, image/Ajustments/hue saturation (saturation should usualy be around 60), ok, layers pallette/create new fill/adjusment layer/levels then slide the slider from right to left (dark to light) until desired blend of white is achieved.

Hope this helps for next time

Regards,

Tinamou

NancyJ · #6 08-27-2006, 08:01 AM

You should colour the eyes, nails and teeth the same as the rest of the picture, nails are generally the same as the skin colour, maybe a little pinker on caucasians and paler on darker skin, the areas around the eyes should be a light pinkish tone, around the teeth should be pink also - remember its not just teeth in there, never forget the gums and a little yellowing (not too much) on the teeth adds naturalism. If you're painting in soft light or colour mode then the whites will stay white and the colour will just stick where its needed. I would demonstrate, but at patrick said, the image is just too small.

PatrickB · #7 08-27-2006, 10:22 AM

Nancy,

Gerald said in his first post "how can I bring the nails, eyes, and teeth back to their original color", there was nothing about whitening.

But it's funny to see all those people answering a different question

NancyJ · #8 08-27-2006, 02:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PatrickB

Nancy,

Gerald said in his first post "how can I bring the nails, eyes, and teeth back to their original color", there was nothing about whitening.

But it's funny to see all those people answering a different question

I dont say anything in my post about whitening...

tinamou · #9 08-28-2006, 04:58 AM

Patrick,

Gerald wrote the following in his thread "How to whiten teeth, nails, and eyes" therefore this is the reason that people got the idea his problem was whitening!

tinamou

Quote:

Originally Posted by PatrickB

Nancy,

Gerald said in his first post "how can I bring the nails, eyes, and teeth back to their original color", there was nothing about whitening.

But it's funny to see all those people answering a different question

Gerald McClaren · #10 08-28-2006, 07:32 AM

Sorry if I had confused anyone, maybe I had used the wrong topic, instead it should have been "How to bring teeth, nails, and eyes back to their originial color". I new how to whiten the teeth and eyes etc., but my problem was how to bring them back to their original color after hand coloring. For example, I had colored the face including the eyes. I had used the erase tool over both of the eyes to take off the excess coloring, but they turned a greyish color instead of the original color. I hope that explains everything.
I thank everyone for their info and tips, especially NancyJ on the coloring of the teeth, nails, and eyes. Those information are really handy the next time I hand color a photo. Thanks everyone.
p.s Here's a larger picture

Gerald McClaren

Cassidy · #11 08-28-2006, 10:07 AM

Gerald, keeping in mind Nancy's suggestion, I'd select the areas (teeth, eyes and nails), paint in colour blend mode a red/orange and then drop the opacity to a natural looking state. I notice the current tones are very cyan. Maybe individual layers per area

PatrickB · #12 08-28-2006, 11:59 AM

Just to prove my technique also works

Still needs a lot to do, don't like the gums and there should be some more colors in the skin, it looks too uniform in my eyes.

Gerald McClaren · #13 08-28-2006, 08:03 PM

PatrickB, what do I need to do to improve on the coloring of this photo. What color(s) do I need to add. Please elaborate for me. Thanks for the info.

Gerald McClaren

PatrickB · #14 08-29-2006, 07:20 PM

Gerald,

I think most important is to bring some colors into the skin in general.

There is a terrible green-cast in your picture so I'd get rid of it first and color-correct it.

Then you might try to sample three skin-tones from another black woman and paint in the different areas. I think I remember Katrin Eismann has something like this published but I don't remember where. Skincolor varies from dark to light areas. Just one plain tone for all the skin looks too flat and artificial. I tried one thing: A gradient map with navy blue for dark and cad red for bright areas. Just for fun. It looks somewhat weird but that should be a start.

Then some more color to the nails, lips, gums, eyes and so on. Don't forget a red spot in the eyecorner!

Hm, what next... Study a color picture and try to imitate the color, that's what I'd begin.

But I have to say the comment I gave was a plain "looking from an amateur angle" since I don't know too much about coloring

P.

jocassien · #15 09-01-2006, 08:59 AM

Hi everybody,

If I may propose a method found in the DVD edited by Lyndacom on CS2 instead of retouching the whole background you should first create an adjustement layer "hue/saturation" (filled with white by default) on a layer copy of it, desaturate the hue on the yellow range dial (eventually increase the global luminosity if required); then invert the adjustment mask so as to fill it with black and finally use a soft white brush to make the whiter adjustement slowly reappear on the part of the picture which needs whitening. You can modify the opacity of the adjustement layer as a whole to make the modification appear more natural. I have tried this method on a portrait, and well it works fine.
Hope this can help. Be kind with you for this is my very first post on the forum !