This is one lesson I wish I could use permanently on myself – how to get pearly white teeth. In Photoshop it’s pretty easy to do this using the dodge tool. The main thing to remember is not to go too mad whitening, the teeth should still look natural.

1. Open the image of the person (or animal!) whose teeth need a bit of whitening.

2. Choose Image >Duplicate to make a copy of your original image in case of accidents. (I named my copy “White Teeth”. Close your original file.

3. Choose Window > Arrange > New Window For White Teeth. A duplicate window will open up.

4. Zoom into one of the windows so that the teeth are as large as possible.(Our model in this example is not exactly Shane McGowen in the teeth department, her teeth are very nice but we’ll still whiten them a little bit.) Leave the other window at 100% magnification or a magnification which allows you to see most of the image.

5. Make sure you can see both windows at the same time.

6. Select the Dodge tool from the toolbox.

7. On the tool options bar, choose a small soft brush. Pick a brush size that is smaller than the teeth. Set the range to midtones and set the exposure to 15%.

Start painting on the teeth with the dodge tool and work around each of the teeth. You may need to make the brush smaller for some of the smaller teeth at the back.

9. If you feel the teeth have become too white and look a bit unnatural, choose Edit > Fade Dodge tool to reduce the opacity.

Before (on the left) and After.

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