Adobe Photoshop and CS

[Amy]

Hi Jen! Yes, it CAN be done! I'm taking a Photoshop class at our community college, and just this week we learned how to make a selection and change the color. I knew I had pix on my computer from when my boys got their braces off - before (with braces) and after (without). And yes, my oldest DS had to wear his braces for 4 years; it just about killed him when his younger brother only had to wear his for 2 years!!

Anyway, I just lighted up one tooth so you could see the difference, and it didn't do anything to the braces or the lovely red and green bands:

You select the teeth you want, then go to Enhance/Adjust Color/Replace Color. I just used the lightness slider (at the very bottom of the window) and made the tooth as light as I wanted. You can really make them bright white if you want, but then it wouldn't look very natural.

Good luck!

 

[extreme8]

Another option (there are is almost always another option or 10 in photoshop!) is to select the teeth using whatever method you're most comfortable with - I prefer the pen tool, then I convert the path to a selection.
Then use the hue/saturation tools - choose the yellow channel and reduce the saturation. Once the yellowing is out you can adjust the lightness layer to taste. I always make changes like this on an adjustment layer for extra versatility.
You can do much the same thing with the whites of the eye to give it a bit more pop.
Don't get too carried away or, as already mentioned, it will really look unnatural.

 

[Lizziejane]

Not only can you whiten the teeth, but you can straighten them too!! I just spent half an hour replacing my crooked teeth on a photo. That photoshop is just too darned addicting!!! Of course, while I was at it, I "softened" some of those nasty wrinkles.

 

[DVC Jen]

Sounds like a lot of work. LOL At least it can be done. I will have to play around with it when I am not tired and DH is not "annoyed" with how much time I have spent playing with my camera.

 

[Amy]

And the easiest way of all......once the braces are off and they can brush really good again, their teeth WILL get a little whiter naturally.

 

[barrie]

I looked it up in Scott Kelby's book for a post on another board. He uses the Hue/Saturation slider. For people that don't have the book:

1. open photo
2. press L to choose lasso tool and carefully draw around teeth, careful not to get gums or teeth
3. under Select menu, choose feather
4. enter 1 pixel, then OK
5. under Image menu, then under Adjustments, choose Hue/Saturation
6. chooose Yellows from the Edit drop-down menu at the top
7. drag Saturation slider to the left to remove yellow
8. change Edit drop down menu back to Master
9. drag Lightness slider to the right to whiten & brighten teeth - not so far as to be obvious
10. cllick OK and then Contol-D (Command-D on Mac) to see results

 

[tinksdad]

PhotoShop is such a great program! So many different ways to do things.

I came across Russel Brown Show website and found several of the things on it very helpful. One that I use quite a bit is the soft dodging and burning. Great for a non-destructive way to softly lighten or darken elements of the photo.

See quicktime video

 

[DVC Jen]

Thanks everyone.

 

[prcoamo]

For a novice as myself what do you recommend as photo software to use? Photoshop? I see there is Photoshop Cs2 out, do you think this is something someone like myself w/out any prior experience would be able to learn? or is to advanced? Should I start out w/ another version perhaps?
I'm eager to start working on my photos from our Disney trip.

Thanks

 

[tinksdad]

PhotoShop is an advanced program. It can do MANY things and is quite amazing. But, it is complicated and takes awhile to learn. I think most of us who have it never learn and use its full capacity.

Check out this article for some info, might be helpful.

 

[shirleyb]

I really like Microsoft Digital Image Pro, because it's very intuitive for me. It depends what you're wanting a program to do for you.

 

[YEKCIM]

I know all you advanced photog's will laugh me right off the forum, but I've been pretty happy with Google's Picasa product, especially for the price (free d/l). Most of my pix are just cropped and auto-contrast-ed, and printed, and look very good. Picasa will *not* do all the fancy-schmancy things that PS will (like selective coloring, repair cloning, etc) but fits my needs, at least at present, pretty well.

~YEKCIM

 

[Dizholic]

My DH bought me Photoshop Elements 5.0 for Valentine's Days, along with Photoshop Elements 5 - The Missing Manual. I still have no idea how to work this program, but when I download my pictures on to the computer it automatically fixes red eye. This function alone is worth the price of the program.

 

[MICKEY88]

Paint SHop Pro Photo X!..has an easier learning curve and will basically do everything that photo shop will do, many of the editing features can be done with one click for beginners, once you get more experience you can take more control of the editing...

 

[boBQuincy]

Photoshop CS2 (soon CS3) is an advanced program with a pretty steep learning curve. Ii is also rather expensive so before jumping into that you might want to try some of the other options to see what your needs and wants turn out to be.

Photoshop Elements is inexpensive and gives an upgrade path to CS2. Picasa has a *great* price and does the basics.
GIMP is also free and does a lot of what Photoshop does, although differently.
Microsoft's imaging programs work well, as does Paint Shop Pro, with interfaces that you may like better than the others.

Most of these have a free trial so you can play around with them to see which one works the way you prefer. The name "Photoshop" always comes up because it is the standard but it may not always be the best choice (it is my choice but I sometimes do a *lot* of editing to an image).

 

[prcoamo]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I want to for e.g., be able to remove unwanted item(s) from a picture (for e.g. I have a nice picture of dd and myself in front of the castle however unfortunately the photographer also captured the rear end of someone bending over, so I'd like to remove that), also be able to invert a picture to b/w keeping like a sole item (say a shirt or whatever) in color, etc. etc
you know things like that

 

[jann1033]

i think i downloaded every free trial known to man and to me photoshop elements( got 4 first then 5) was the easiest to learn...for one reason i got the elements missing manual by Barbara Brundage that explains pretty much everything there is about the program... so i'm glad a got a "popular" program so i could find info on how to use it not being all that tech savvy.
i have had a lot of problems with e5 but it have determined 1) part was due to some bugs when it came out 2) part is due to my 10,000 photos and tiny little 512 mb of ram,,,once i moved my catalog to an external drive it's worked better( messed up the photos i had cataloged so now it's a pain to get them but oh well can't have everything)
forgot to say pe5 does all you mentioned and according to that above mentioned book, most of what psc does ( are a few things it doesn't do which i don't remember ) but sometimes you have to know where to find the tools..it does convert to b&w but i personally like alien skin( not cheap) and virtual photographer( free, also lots of free updates) better for that then tweak it with layers in pse5. also since i shoot in raw, i use the canon digital pro processor as i like that better than the photoshop one. ( that was free with the camera i have)

 

[photo_chick]

I don't recommend Photoshop CS2 for a beginner. I have been using photoshop for about 8 years now and stilll constantly ask my wonderful DH (my guru) for help.
However, Photoshop Elements is much more user firendly. I have been teaching my 6 year old to use it. She is picking it up fairly quickly and loving the filters!

Both PhotoshopCS2 and Elements can do much more than photo work too.
http://toddworld.deviantart.com/gallery/


What are you wanting to get out of your software? There are so many titles available out there that all have advantages and disadvantaes.

fF you are processing RAW give Adobe Lightroom a look as well. I am so loving that software! Alas I could have bought another lens, but I got software instead!!

 

[Gdad]

I would reccomend Photoshop Elements 5 - you can always upgrade to CS2 (or CS3) at a later date and many of the Elements commands will still apply but 99% of what you will likely need or use can be accomplished with Elements.

 

[huskermommy]

I recommend Photoshop Elements too! I used 2.0 quite a while ago and it was great..I now use Photoshop CS. Good luck!

Kelly