Whitening teeth

This method works in all versions of Photoshop and Elements.

Step 1:

Make sure you’ve done all your global enhancing first. Small edits like teeth and eyes should be among the last steps in your workflow.

teeth_1.jpg

Step 2:

Loosely select the teeth (eg with the Lasso Tool). The beauty of this technique is that no precision selections are required.

teeth_2.jpg

Step 3:

Make a new Hue/Saturation adjustment layer, and choose Yellows from the drop-down menu.

teeth_3.jpg

Step 4:

Move the Lightness slider to the right until you’re happy with the result. Toggle the Preview on and off to judge your adjustment.

teeth_4.jpg

Remember, subtlety is usually best – if you go too far your subject will start to look like a cartoon character. Sometimes as little as 10-20% will be perfect.

Note:

In extreme cases where yellowness persists even after the Lightness adjustment, it may be necessary to desaturate the Yellows slightly, by moving the Saturation slider to the left.

I wouldn’t recommend going further than 5-10%, because desaturation moves colours towards grey, and grey teeth are worse than yellow teeth!

 


If you have a question about this article, please feel free to post it in Ask Damien.