Whitening Teeth

[T Paul]

Here is a quick way to whiten teeth without those pesky overnight whitening stripes or expensive dental bleaching.

• Open Photo
• Carefully draw a selection around the teeth. Make sure that you don’t select any of the lips or gums (teeth only).
• Go under the Select menu and choose Feather and set the value for 1 to 2 pixels for low-res photos, 3 to 5 for high-res photos (this will smooth the edges of your selection eliminating any hard edges)
• Copy and paste the selection onto its own layer above the image
• Go under the Image menu, under Adjustments, and choose Hue/Saturation
• When the dialog box appears, choose Yellows
  Then, drag the Saturation slider to the left to remove the yellow from the teeth
• Switch back to the Master, and drag the Lightness slider to the right to whiten and brighten the teeth. Be careful not to overdue this making the retouch too obvious (like blinding white teeth)
• Click ok to view your results

Since you copied the teeth to their own layer you can erase if you accidentally selected some of the gum or lips as well as lower the opacity if you need to.

~T

If you have another technique for accomplishing this, please share it by adding it to this thread.

[gina]

Thx T Paul,

this seems like a very good procedure.



gina

[Jeff L]

Thanks! This is a good one for sure man!

[SMETZ99]

I've always found it really simple to use the sponge tool set to desaturate. I use this method to highlight the whites of the eyes also.

[Hunter]

Using Photopaint for this technique didn't quite work the same way. When I went in to do a Hue/Saturation/Lightness and reduced the Hue of the Yellows, it started making the teeth too red, IMO.

What I did instead was go to the Selective Color dialogs and did the same thing - went to the Yellows and brought it down 100% I then went back in to the H/S/L dialog and upped the lightness.

[T Paul]

SMETZ99, the desaturate technique is always a good one.

Hunter, thanks for adding the fix for PhotoPaint.

~T

[simdog]

Excellent tutorial thanks. I have been using the Lighten mode to do this effect. From now on I will use your method

Thanks again

[pixeltickler]

I just make a h/s/l adjustment layer set to colorize and then make the whole thing look the color I think the teeth should be. Then invert the adjustment layer so it's all black
then I paint on it at 50% opacity right on the teeth. (I hate selecting) with a feathered brush of appropriate size and voila. One trip to the dentist complete. but then also I can adjust the h/s/l layer if I've picked the wrong shade for the teeth.

Diane

[Ron Hirsch]

I've been adding one more step to improve the teeth. In addition to cutting the saturation way back for yellow, I also use the "lighten" slider when the teeth are too "dull.

Of course, don't overdo this, or the teeth will look artificial.

Also, adjusting the opacity of the teeth layer can be used to strike a happy medium.

Ron Hirsch