Jennifer J. Enright
- Mar 21, 2021
- 5 min read

Best Teeth Whitening Method in Adobe Photoshop

Updated: Jun 28, 2023

Best Teeth Whitening Method in Adobe Photoshop.

There are many products that claim to work quickly to create pearly white teeth. Since our smiles are what most people pay attention to in photographs in the first place, many want to have a beautiful smile. However, there is nothing faster than simply taking a photo of yourself or others in Photoshop. And it is very simple to do it.

In this article, you will find how to whiten teeth in portrait photos as well as make them look natural. Teeth that are too white can make an image look fake, so it is helpful to know the methods available to whiten teeth in Photoshop.

Whiten Teeth in Photoshop With Hue & Saturation

The best way to whiten teeth in Photoshop is to use a Hue and Saturation adjustment layer on your image. This makes it easy to whiten teeth not only for one person but for several people, if necessary. You need to select and whiten teeth for several people separately, as one person may need different settings than another.

Open the image in Photoshop and zoom in on the teeth you want to whiten. Then select the Lasso tool from the toolbar. Using this, you want to select only the teeth of your object, for example:

If you find it difficult to make the right choice, don't worry too much, you can clean it up later.

At the bottom of the Layers panel, find a circle icon that looks half light and half dark. This option is to Create a new fill or adjustment. Choose a hue and saturation setting. You will see a new adjustment layer appear in the layers panel.

In the Hue and Weight property pane, find the drop-down list that you selected as the main one. This drop-down list selects which color channel in your selection you will change. In this case, you need to select the yellow channel. Then you'll want to look at the Saturation slider and rotate it down until the yellow is visible.

You may also want to lighten the whitened teeth at this stage, as this will help further highlight the smile in the photo. Change the dropdown list of color channels back to Master. Then use the Brightness slider and turn it up to make the teeth appear brighter.

Clean Up Edges

You may find it difficult to accurately select your teeth. This is because some changes to the adjustment layer also affect the areas around the teeth. However, you can easily fix this.

Select the Brush tool and make sure the foreground brush color is black. This is because, with Photoshop adjustment layers, you can also use layer masking to hide or show parts of the adjustment. Using a brush, you can paint over with black to erase any part of the adjustment and white to paint it back.

So, in this case, you will want to use black to paint over areas that should not be affected by the adjustment layer. If you make a mistake, you can always change the foreground color to white to recolor the area.

Whitening Teeth in Photoshop for Multiple Subjects

Some photos may show more than one person whose teeth you want to whiten. Your best bet is to create another separate adjustment layer for this person.

Before creating the second (or more) adjustment layers, you need to select the Lasso tool again and make sure you have the background layer selected. Then you can highlight the next person's teeth, just like the first time.

Once you have made your selection, you can go to the Create New Fill or Adjustment icon as before and select Hue and Saturation. Then you can whiten that person's teeth in the same way as before. You can add as many adjustment layers as you like if you need to whiten several people's teeth.

If you want to see the original image before adding any adjustments, you can select the eye icon to the left of the Adjustment Layers in the Layers panel to look at the original.

Making Teeth Look Naturally White

There are a few things you need to keep in mind when using hue and saturation to whiten teeth in Photoshop so as not to overdo it with whitening and lightening. This can make the image look too unnatural.

When removing yellow tints from teeth using the saturation slider, you must remember that all teeth are naturally slightly yellow. Removing all traces of yellow can make the smile look a little odd. So, choose a more subtle effect so that it is not obvious that retouching has been done.

The same is true for teeth whitening. You don't want them to look dazzling white (unless you want to), so again, stick to a finer level when changing the brightness slider.