Understanding methods to whiten tooth in Lightroom is crucial to provide natural-looking portraits.

Whenever you shoot portraits outdoors a managed studio surroundings, you possibly can hardly ever obtain vibrant and color-cast-free tooth straight out of the digicam.
Generally, the tooth get shaded by the lips and, in consequence, get underexposed. As an alternative of vibrant white, they appear greyish.
Second, the surroundings produces a colour forged that makes tooth look unnatural. For instance, a sundown creates an orange/yellow colour forged, a vibrant open sky produces a blue colour forged, and combined lighting indoors can produce completely different colour anomalies.
It signifies that even when your mannequin has excellent white tooth with none stains, you continue to want to the touch them up in Lightroom throughout post-processing.
The aim of tooth modifying in Lightroom is to brighten the tooth and take away any unnatural colour forged. Fortunately, that is very straightforward to do.
The way to Whiten Tooth in Lightroom
Adobe launched a serious replace to Lightroom in October 2021, which triggered a shift in the best way tooth whitening is finished. The Brush Adjustment device, which you could possibly beforehand use for tooth whitening, was renamed to Brush device and moved to the Masking module.
This tutorial will train you methods to whiten tooth in Lightroom utilizing the brand new brush device to include it into your workflow.
You simply need to comply with these subsequent steps:
1. Create New Brush Masks
- First, it’s essential to open a picture in Lightroom.
- Within the Develop module, click on on the Masking Icon. That is located within the prime proper bar, which appears like a circle with a dotted define.

- You’ll discover that you’ve got many masking choices out there. For this explicit edit, it’s important to select the Brush Icon: Click on on “Brush” – there’s a brush icon proper subsequent to the phrase

- The Brush Panel will come up. Right here, you possibly can see the Masks Panel and a New Masks and New Brush part beneath it. Beneath are the sliders you’ll be utilizing.

2. Choose the Tooth Whitening Preset From the Impact Menu
- Within the Brush panel, go to “Impact” (beneath the “Brush” space)
- Click on on the drop-down arrow and search for the impact’s identify (Tooth Whitening) from the record. Choose it.

You’ll discover that Saturation and Publicity at the moment are set to values applicable for tooth whitening. This preset impacts solely two parameters: Publicity +0.40 and Saturation -60
3. Choose the Auto Masks Choice
Earlier than going additional and making use of the impact, there may be one other essential step you mustn’t overlook beneath any circumstance. Test the Auto Masks field. You’ll see it beneath the Brush changes field.

What does Auto Masks do? Basically, it helps your Brush keep inside the strains when portray. That’s as a result of masking occurs provided that the colour and distinction are related. If there’s a distinction between these two, the masking gained’t work – that’s, you gained’t have the ability to apply it.
So in case your palms are shaky, you don’t ever have to fret about going over the road.
4. Zoom in on the Space of the Tooth
You must make sure you get most precision and element. That is simply an additional step, albeit one which makes an enormous distinction. The ultimate edit ought to look as pure as doable.
To Zoom in on the tooth:
- Press down the Spacebar and maintain it down
- Click on within the space of the moth

5. Regulate Brush Dimension
Within the Develop module Brush part, go to the Brush field the place your brush changes sliders are, and go to the “Dimension” slider. Play with it till you attain the specified dimension.

Alternatively, you should use:
- the shortcuts “[“ and “]” to extend or scale back the scale of the Brush
- the mouse wheel to alter the scale accordingly
6. Activate Masks Overlay
Usually, Masks Overlay is activated from the beginning. But when that’s not the case, you are able to do it by following these steps:
- Head to the Masks Panel
- Make sure that the field subsequent to Present Overlay is ticked – if not, verify it your self.

Alternatively, a better technique to activate masks overlay is just by utilizing the shortcut “O” in your keyboard.
*Notice: It’s also possible to select your overlay mode – these modes spotlight the affected areas and might be any colour or opacity you need. To do that, merely click on on the ellipsis picture subsequent to “Present Overlay” and verify your choice from the dropdown menu.

7. Begin Portray Over the Tooth
The final step is definitely portray over the tooth.
Drag the Brush alongside the areas that you just wish to be whitened. Take your time – the extra you listen, the less changes you’ll need to make afterward. The Masks Overlay will point out the affected areas.

Now that we’ve bought our tooth coated (actually) let’s take a look at how to make sure the masks is making a distinction. To do that, uncheck Present Overlay within the Masks panel (shortcut “O”) – to see the precise adjustments.

Now let’s take a look at what we are able to do if our masks isn’t correct sufficient. Let’s say it has an excessive amount of protection above the lip—if that occurs, then you’ve a few choices:
Undo the final retouch:
- Use the keyboard shortcut “Management + Z” for WINDOWS or “Command + Z” for Mac.
- Go to the highest bar -> Click on on “Edit,” -> click on on “Undo.”
Delete Brush:
- Proper-click the comb picture -> From the menu, go and click on on Delete “Brush 1”
8. Refine the Masks
If meaning eradicating any changes you made outdoors of the realm you wished to have an effect on, it’s important to subtract from the choice by turning the Brush device into the Eraser brush. Simply comply with these steps:
Head again to the Masks panel > choose Subtract > Brush. Then arrange your brush settings as follows:

- Make sure that your Brush’s dimension is excellent – if not, you possibly can at all times regulate accordingly.
- It is best to ideally set density and Movement to 100
- Feathering must be excessive – 75+ is an effective quantity.
Afterward, merely go to the picture and choose the areas you wish to subtract from.
9. Change the Power of the Enhancing Impact
- You may make another further change to your impact, and that’s altering the energy of the impact of tooth whitening.

10. Ultimate End result
Whenever you disable the Brush Masks, you possibly can preview earlier than & after results.
As you possibly can see, I managed to brighten the tooth and take away the yellow colour forged.

The way to Whiten Tooth in Lightroom | Conclusion
That’s it. All of the steps are boiled right down to a simple course of. Have your photographs prepared and comply with the steps above, and also you’ll have the ability to whiten anybody’s tooth in Lightroom shortly and superbly. Make sure that the ultimate edit doesn’t look synthetic and unrealistic, so play with these sliders at your individual danger!
And don’t overlook to smile!