Photography and Photoshop ® : Simple Tools and Rules for Effective and Accurate Communication

Dental imaging is critical for visual information transfer between the patient, the restorative dentist, the dental specialist, and the ceramist. Most people are visually oriented, and the old saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words” holds true. Visual documentation makes it significantly easier to demonstrate problems and motivate patients to accept needed treatment. An extremely important aspect of this information transfer is that the ceramist needs as much shade information as possible to duplicate the shade of the adjacent natural teeth. This article will focus on the techniques and armamentarium for photography and the use of Photoshop® (Adobe Systems, Inc, San Jose, CA) as a communication tool with the ceramist. A more detailed description of camera selection and camera settings is available; 1 however, this article will only go briefly into camera selection and camera settings. CAMERA SELECTION Photography with a semiprofessional or professional digital camera is best suited for dental and portrait applications. Digital cameras have evolved to the point in which images viewed on a properly calibrated monitor or printed with an appropriately calibrated digital printer are practically indiscernible to their film counterparts. Digital photography images have the distinct advantage of being able to be viewed immediately after exposure. If the photographic variables are wrong, the photographer will know instantly and can correct and retake the image. Another main benefit of digital photography is that the better cameras allow the taking of an image in a RAW file format. When the camera captures images in this format, it is capturing data in its uncompressed or unaltered format. In this format, it captures information over a range of exposures and the whole range of color temperature values the camera allows. Functionally, this is bracketing, which means taking images at different exposures or capturing lighter and darker multiple images of the same scene both over- and underexposed. It is also capturing images that are cooler (bluer) and warmer (oranger) than the present camera settings. Taking the image in the RAW file format allows for mistakes in exposure settings to be easily corrected

[1]  E A McLaren,et al.  Photography in dentistry. , 2001, Journal of the California Dental Association.