Color calibration and lighting is one of the biggest challenges dentist face when taking patient photos for shade. The lingering problem has been solved by ShadeWave Dental Shade Matching Software. ShadeWave automatically color corrects poorly lit photos in real-time and creates three proprietary digital maps: shade, translucency and value. These highly accurate maps provide a detailed guide for labs to achieve accurate and consistent dental shade matching results.
To illustrate this proprietary feature, Dennis Braunston, the Developer and President of ShadeWave conducted an experiment using a Canon G16 Camera and Shade Reference to take three smile photos with different lighting.
The camera was purposely color calibrated differently for each picture. Photo 1: was normal, or white balanced, Photo 2: was too red, and Photo 3: too blue. The photos were uploaded into ShadeWave and automatically color corrected.
Notice that although the gum tissue looks slightly different, the teeth are all the same shade. This is highlighted in the Color Corrected Illustration in the column labeled, “Filtered, Neutral Gray.”
Dennis then sampled the Shade Reference tab and revealed the shade map of the two front teeth in all three photos. The software allows the user to switch between any Shade Guide they desire, Dennis chose to use Vita Classic.
ShadeWave assigns different colors to different shades. In the column labeled “Shade Map,” we can see that the program uses Yellow for C1, Burgundy for B2 and Green for A1. With ShadeWave the user can select the number of shades shown in the picture, in this illustration, there are three.
All three photos result in the same shade map when processed through ShadeWave. The maps display the same general characterizations of the tooth, and provide information needed to produce a beautifully matched crown.
What does this mean? This experiment shows that a digital camera no longer needs to be color calibrated before taking a photo of the teeth. With varying color differentiations, ShadeWave was able to accurately correct a photo to the same standards.
For more information on this article and ShadeWave visit: www.shadewave.com, or call Dennis Braunston at (425) 557-7788.
