We have all seen it; people who whiten their teeth until they glow in the dark. Scary, right? But what do you do when you are editing a lovely portrait and have to deal with slightly yellowed teeth from pleasurable coffee drinking (yep, that's me)? I have seen people go crazy on the teeth editing, so I want to post a tutorial/action that gives a subtle, natural tooth whitening that won't blind you.
I am including a step-by-step tutorial and an action. Thanks to suggestions from my readers, I am going to create single-step actions for all of my retouching action sets. I plan on writing a simple smooth skin action next.
CoffeeShop Bright Smile Photoshop/PSE tutorial:
1. Open your image. As you can see, this lovely lady has slightly yellow teeth.
2. Add a Hue/Adjustment layer and set the Master and Yellow setting to the screenshot above. Master: Hue, -10; Saturation, -25; Lightness, 15. Yellow: Saturation, -20; Lightness, 40. You can play with these settings if needed.
3. Then add a black layer mask to the Hue/Saturation layer. (Click to select it and fill it with black.)
4. Click to select the layer mask and use a soft white 100% opacity brush to paint on the teeth. I clicked on Shift-alt and clicked on the layer mask so I could see where I was painting.
5. Admire your subtly whitened teeth!
Mouse over to see the before.
Download the free CoffeeShop Bright Smile Action.
Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop PSE/Photoshop Actions and Lightroom Presets or Design Elements in one convenient zipped file AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for a download of some of my most popular design elements, storyboards, and textures.
For complete info on installing all of my actions, click here.
