Create a winning smile in GIMP

Shiny white teeth look great but, let's face it, not all of us have the benefit of expensive orthodontics. Luckily, armed with some graphics software you can give yourself or your best friend a professional whitening job in seconds.

To whiten teeth, in GIMP, click your favourite selection tool and make a selection around the teeth. Take care to select all the tooth area but avoid including any of the gum line or lips. You may find the "Select contiguous regions tool" is the best to use. Set a feather by choosing Select, Feather and set a feather value of 1 or 2 if the image is large.

Choose Tools, Color Tools, Hue-Saturation and click the option button for the Yellows so you'll adjust only the yellow coloring in the selected area. Reduce the intensity of the yellow by dragging the Saturation slider a little to the left. Check the Green and Red channels to see if altering their saturation has an effect and repeat as needed. Click on the Master button and drag the Lightness slider to the right to lighten the entire selection.