Today I am going to show you how to whiten teeth and give the appearance of a sun tan in PhotoShop, I will also show you how to remove any blemishes, spots and freckles.

Whitening Teeth

You can clearly see there is some yellowing of the teeth on the original image to the left.

To achieve a brighter look…

1. Firstly duplicate your layer so we don’t work on the original , you can do this by dragging the layer down to the Create a new layer button or by right clicking the layer and selecting Duplicate Layer.

2.  Zoom in on your new layer around the mouth by pressing Ctrl + or using the Zoom Tool (Shortcut: Z on keyboard). If you have zoomed in to much, press Ctrl – to zoom out slightly.

3. Then we need to select the PolyGonal lasso tool, by pressing this button in the tools panel  (you can select this tool by pressing L on your keyboard).

4. Once the PolyGonal lasso tool is selected, begin clicking your mouse and selecting the around the area around the mouth you wish to whiten. This does not have to be precision job.

5. Once the area is selected, select the Create new fill or adjustment layer towards the bottom of the layers panel. A pop up will appear, then select Hue/Saturation.

6. Select Yellows from the “Edit” drop down list, or alternatively select Ctrl+2. Now adjust the saturation level down until the yellow taint has reduced to your requirement.

7. Next increase the Lightness slider to brighten up the smile. Voila!

Creating a tanned effect

Now I will show you have to give your skin a darker “sun kissed” tone.

1. Again before we begin, duplicate your layer, so we are not working on the original image. If you are continuing this tutorial after completing the above teeth whiting instructions then merge your duplicate layer and the fill/adjustment layer together by selecting them both and right clicking, then selecting Merge Layers. Then duplicate this layer by pressing Ctrl and J on your keyboard. Now you should have your original image (with  the yellow teeth), another layer with whiter teeth and a duplicate layer which we are about to work with.

2. Select the Paint Brush tool (Keyboard shortcut: B) and adjust the master diameter to a comfortable level to brush over the face also adjust the brush hardness to about 80%. See image to the right.

3. Next hit Q on your keyboard to go into quick mask mode. The layer will should now have a grey active background to it.

4. Begin painting over the face (this areas you wish to tan),  this excludes eyes/teeth/hair.  See image to the  left. Toggle the Background/forground colour box to remove unwanted brushed areas.

5. When you have finished you should have something that looks like this. (See image to right)

6. Next hit Q on your keyboard and you should see a dashed  outline around the face which shows a selection. You will notice currently it is selecting all out the area outside the face. We only want to tan the face so we need to inverse the selection. To do this locate Select from the top menu then select Inverse. You will now see the outline is now highlighting the selection of the face only.

7. Next go to Image which can be located from the top menu, then select Adjustments then Curves.

8. Drag the curve slightly diagonally down and right to increase the tanned appearance. Once you are happy with your tan level. Select Ok.

9. If you find that you appear to be more orange more than tanned; change the mode of the layer to Luminosity , which can be selected  from the drop down list located on the layers panel, next to the opacity dropdown. Congratulations you are now tanned!

Removing Spots and Freckles

1. To remove freckles, spots and other marks on your skin you simply need to use the Spot heeling brush tool (Keyboard shortcut: J).

2. Ensure the brush diameter is a comfortable size, this can be adjusted by click on the Brush picker button, towards the top left of your screen.

3. Begin selecting areas of the face you wish to remove. The heeling brush will recreate that area of skin with what it thinks should there, by using patches of skin near to that area.

So now lets take a look at what we have achieved today.

Original Image

PhotoShopped Image