How Do I Fix My Teeth?

[Mr. LemonHead]

I'm an actor :cool: and I'm retouching my headshots. I'm correcting all my blemishes, fixing colors, etc., but when I want to close a gap in my tooth, I'm at a loss. I use the brush (mask) tool to paint over the gap and, when I see what I've done in edit, it looks great! Problem is, when I save my file, the correction doesn't appear (am I making any sense?). In other words, I'm able to paint over the imperfection and close the space in my teeth, and I can see where I placed the paint, but when I try to go to another function and save the change, there's this, like, moving-dotted-line-thingy indicating the shape I just painted, and, I'm unable to "attach" the paint to the pcture -- Can anyone make sense of this and tell me what I'm doing wrong? Anyone??:confused:

[Wendy]

Hi there ...

... and welcome to the forum :)


I suspect that you may be using the selection brush instead of the paint brush. The paint brush is just below the pencil ... hover you cursor above the tools and you will see the names apprear ..

do let us know how you go on :)

Wendy

[Diana]

I have changed some tooth shapes successfully using Filter > Distort > Liquify and the first tool on the list.

Diana

[Mr. LemonHead]

Thank you, Diana. I appreciate your help. But, I'm a truse beginner at this and, after I tried this, I have no idea what to do next (or before) Do I select an area I want to fix first? When I did the Filter, Distort, Liquify, a big white box comes up and, then I'm at a lost -- How do I pinpoint the area I want to liquify and then correct the image? I'm sorry, but, I can use more step-by-step instructions. Again, thanks for your help, but...:(

[Daviskw]

Hi there

There is nothing wrong with using the liquify command but a good practice for you would be to use the procedures below. You will use selections and layers… a good learning experience.

I will try and talk you thru a way to close the gap. It is hard to do without seeing your picture but this should work for you.

Open your picture and using the zoom tool, zoom in where you can see the teeth edges.

On the left side of your screen should be the tool bar. The sixth icon down will be the lasso selection tool if you have a single row. If not hold your mouse over the icons and it will say lasso tool. If you see magnetic or Polygonal click and hold you will see the lasso option…select it.

Now go to your left tooth. At an edge click and hold the mouse and draw around your tooth. Try not to get any red gum. When you go around and come to the start release the mouse button and you will see the marching ant outline of the selection.

If you make a mistake or let go too soon and you are not happy with the selection, just hit the escape key and start again.

Now that your selection is made we are going to feather the edge. On the main menu press Select>Feather… in the box type 1 then click oK.

Now we are going to make your first layer, Hold the Ctrl key and press the letter J. Your tooth copy is on its own layer. Now go to the first icon on your tool bar it will be the move tool and click it. Your copy tooth is now ready to move. Press the right arrow key and your tooth will move to the right as needed or you can also move your mouse cursor over the new tooth click and drag. Move about half way over. We will do the same on the right tooth now.

This is important…. Click back on your background layer. If you stayed on your new tooth layer you could not select the other tooth.

Select the lasso again and make a selection like you did for the left tooth. When you have the selection apply the 1 pixel feather then press Ctrl J.

Now select the move tool and using the arrow or mouse move the tooth as needed.

The gap should be closed now. If you are satisfied click on Layer>Flatten Image… and save as you like.

Butch

[Diana]

Mr Lemonhead, if you would like to still try the Liquify Filter--

Once you get your image into Liquify, click on the zoom tool (the one that looks like a magnifying glass) and then click on the front teeth a few times to zoom in on them.

Then click on the Warp tool (the first tool that looks like a finger smudge tool). Then press one of the bracket keys...[ for smaller or ] for larger....to resize the circle (brush) to a little smaller than one of your front teeth.

Then place the circle on the edge of the tooth next to the gap and, holding the left mouse button down, drag the edge of the tooth over just a little toward the center (gap). Do it in small incremental steps. Then work on the other front tooth to move the front edge over a little toward the center to meet the other tooth.

As far as whether this method works out for this purpose would depend on how much of a gap you have to fill and whether the adjustment makes your front teeth look too wide. I have used this successfully to make teeth just a little taller and to bring the top lip down just a little when someone smiles with too much gum showing.

Here's a link to Wendy's Fun With Faces tutorial which gives some instructions on using the Liquify Filter.
http://www.photoshopelementsuser.com/forum/showthread.php?t=512

Here are links to some video tutorials that may help:
http://fotofects.com/articles/356/1/Liquify-Filter
http://www.totaltraining.com/videos/mov/TPSCS2A_ForwardWarpTool.mov

Hope this helps.

Diana

[Mr. LemonHead]

:confused: Here's the shot:

http://www.leuzinger.org/ourpages/auto/2005/8/17/1124325794750/photo3.jpg

I know it's minor, but that small space in the teeth on the right side of the pic -- that's what I want to correct. I'm able to paint with the mask brush and adequately fill it in, but, I simply don't know how to save my work so that the mask is seen. I know I'm missing some basic step in closing my file -- what is it?

(I really appreciate all the assisstance I'm getting in this forum, by the way)

[Wendy]

Hi there ...

I donlt know which tool you are using ... but there isn't a mask brush :( There is an ordinary paintbrush.

If the change you made shows up OK on the screen then just do
File>Save As give the image a new name
and make a note of where it saves it to.

Hope that works OK for you :) Bu the way great image and I rather like the gap I think it adds character :)

Wendy

[Daviskw]

Maybe you were using the clone tool. It is simple and easy to do with this picture. Set your tool with the settings in the screen shot. You may use a larger brush but it should not be as big as the area you are cloning.

Hold the Alt key then click on an area of tooth you want to clone. Then move to the area of the gap and paint with the clone tool.

Butch

http://img119.imageshack.us/img119/748/test3bw.th.jpg (http://img119.imageshack.us/my.php?image=test3bw.jpg)

[Diana]

It looks to me like the easiest way to do it is zoom in on the tooth area until its very large, select a brush, make it 1-pixel, click on the foreground color box in the lower left of the screen and use the color picker to pick a color on either tooth that is next to the gap, then click on the dark dark pixels (gap) with the light tooth color to make the gap pixels tooth color. I tried it and it was a snap.

http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/6287/photo35yh.th.jpg (http://img96.imageshack.us/my.php?image=photo35yh.jpg)

Diana