Photoshop Tutorials: Whiten and Brighten Teeth In Photoshop

Step 9: Fine Tune The Whitening By Lowering The Opacity Of The Adjustment Layer

Keep in mind that no matter what the toothpaste companies or the fashion industry want us to believe, human teeth are not pure white, and the only thing you're going to accomplish by making them pure white in Photoshop is that your photo will look fake. So if you think you've gone a bit too far with your whitening, all you need to do is lower the opacity of the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer.

To do that, with the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer selected, go up to the Opacity option in the top right corner of the Layers palette, click directly on the word "Opacity", and then drag your mouse to the left until you've lowered the opacity enough that your image no longer looks fake. I'm going to lower mine to about 75%:

Here's the original image once again for comparison:

And here's the final, more realistic looking "whitening and brightening":

And there we have it!