Rangefinder Magazine
July 2005

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Photoshop Trick: by Scott Kelby and Felix Nelson
Wipe That Smile Off Your Face!

I was looking for an image to use on a project, and couldn’t find one that would work. I found one that was very close, but the guy had this huge, open-mouthed grin on his face. Then I thought, could I just remove the smile with Photoshop? It looks like it might be tough to do, but oddly enough it’s really simple, and it works pretty darn well. Give it a try.

STEP ONE:
Open the image in which you want to remove the person’s smile. This technique works well on an image where the subject was photographed directly from the front. It might work with a 3/4 view, but I’m not sure if the corrected image will line up correctly. As you can see, the guy in our example has a huge, toothy grin that we need to remove.

STEP TWO:
Using the selection tool of your choice, make a selection around the upper part of the head including the upper lip, but not the teeth (see example).

STEP THREE:
Press Command-Option-D (PC: Control-Alt-D) to bring up the Feather dialog, enter 1 pixel, and click OK. Now, press Command-J (Control-J) to put the selection on its own layer (Layer 1). We’ve hidden the Background layer (in the Layers palette) in our example so you can see how Layer 1 should appear.

STEP FOUR:
Duplicate the original Background layer by dragging it onto the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette (Background copy). Choose the Move tool (V) from the Toolbox and move the Background copy layer up, until the lips meet. He’s beginning to look like a mutant bulldog at this point, but we’ll fix that in just a second.

STEP FIVE:
Press Command-T (Control-T) to bring up the Free Transform bounding box. Pull the center Adjustment Points on the left and right until the cheeks of the face line up. (It may take a few attempts before you get it just right.) Press Enter or Return to apply the transformation.

STEP SIX:
Make sure the Background copy layer is active. Choose the Burn tool (0) from the Toolbox. Using a soft-edged Brush, with the Exposure set to 30% (up in the Options Bar), and Midtones selected as the range, darken the top area of the lower lip..

STEP SEVEN:
Choose the Eraser tool (E) from the Toolbox. Click on Layer 1 to make it active, and using a soft-edged Brush, erase the areas around the ears and where the cheeks meet. Try to blend in the areas as best as you can.

STEP EIGHT:
Go to the Layers palette and click in the empty column to the left of the Background copy layer to Link the two layers together. Press Command-E (PC: Control-E) to Merge the two layers.

STEP NINE:
Press Command-T (PC: Control-T) to bring up the Free Transform bounding box. Pull the center Adjustment Points on the top and bottom until the image once again fills the document size. Press Enter or Return to apply the transformation.

STEP TEN:
Here’s the before and after. Like I said, fairly painless, but really effective.