Across the world, people are now reaching for their phones instead of their digital cameras to take photos. The dental world is no different. Every day, more dentists are reaching for their iPhones instead of their digital cameras when taking clinical pictures.
Although phones are familiar and convenient, there have been issues that hinder their effectiveness.
The two largest issues that dentists face when choosing to use their iPhone cameras are:
There are so many complicated aspects of dental photography, so I love it when I can share a simple tip with dentists that will make huge improvements in their dental photos.
The simple tip that I would like to share with you is to make sure that your patient is on the same plane as the camera when the picture is taken. Even though it may seem simpler to leave the patient laying horizontally in the dental chair and take the picture from above, bright operatory lights will eliminate large amounts of detail in the picture that the lab technician needs.
Take the time to raise the dental chair higher and tilt the chair forward so that the patient is in an upright position at the same height as the photographer. This will vastly reduce unwanted reflections. Also, it is helpful to have the patient turn their head toward the camera to ensure even lighting over their entire smile.
If you found this tip helpful, share it with your dental colleagues! If you’d like to learn more ways to quickly improve your dental photography, click here, or go to ShadeWave.com.
Take your dental shade matching to a new level. Click to Schedule a Personal Demo of ShadeWave today!
Shade Tab Incisal Edge Up, or Down in Dental Photography?
It is becoming very popular for dentists to include a shade tab in the dental photo of their patient when the picture is meant to help a dental lab technician with tooth shade and characterization. This is great!
We wanted to take a moment to correct one small, but very important mistake that we are seeing.
When holding the shade tab up to the appropriate tooth, the dentist needs to make sure that the incisal edge of the shade tab is pointed up. Why is this so important?
We include a shade tab in the picture so that the lab technician can compare it to the patient’s tooth in the photo. Therefore, there needs to be as little reflection on both the patient’s tooth and the shade tab. When the shade tab’s incisal edge faces up, the flash of the camera bounces up, and is not seen in the picture. If it is facing down however, the flash will reflect back at the camera, and will degrade the usefulness of the image.
Please watch this video to see this concept explained.
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Dentists and labs can now communicate instantly on Shade Matching cases within ShadeWave.
As we all know, HIPAA compliance in Dental Offices and Dental Laboratories is very important. With this in mind, ShadeWave has added a new feature called Secure Note to our Dental Shade Matching Software. Secure Note is an embedded communication tool inside of ShadeWave that facilitates secure, convenient correspondence between the dentist and the dental laboratory technician. All conversations are stored in the patient’s record and are accessible any time. The goal of Secure Note is to facilitate more frequent, HIPAA compliant, communication between dentists and their dental laboratory while eliminating wasted time playing phone or email tag. View all ShadeWave Features >
Learn more about ShadeWave in the Spring 2016 issue of Journal of Cosmetic Dentistry article “New Algorithm in Shade Matching”.
Visit our website at: ShadeWave.com or Click to Schedule a personal demo today.
5 Ways Dental Photography Can Make Money for Your Dental Practice
Many Dental professionals have some kind of digital camera in their practice. To some, the camera is used as a part of every-day patient procedure and for others, it has become a very expensive paper weight.
These 5 tips are designed to give both the every-day user, and the paper weight connoisseurs some ideas on how to capitalize on and monetize dental photography.
Learn more about ShadeWave’s Dental Shade Matching Software and contact us for more information!
The dental field is a constantly shifting landscape. Advances in the industry are exploding into the market every day. Products like CAD CAM milling machines are quickly growing from an abstract concept, into an industry standard. Patient records have jumped from physical to digital. And there is a constant pressure to stay competitive.
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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.
