How to Put Fake Braces on a Picture Online
You can easily trick your friends in to thinking that you have braces by using Photoshop (or another image-editing software program) to digitally add braces to your photograph and then uploading the picture to Flickr, MySpace, Facebook or another social media website. By playing with the gradient tool, layers and the transform commands, you can quickly and simply add braces to your photos.
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Instructions
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Select a digital photograph to put braces on. Keep in mind that, since braces go on the teeth, you should be smiling broadly in the photo.
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Open your digital photograph in Photoshop by selecting “Open” from under “File” in the menu bar. Navigate to your photograph file and open it.
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Open the “Layers” palette by selecting it under “Window” in the menu bar, and click the “Create a new layer” button to create a new layer.
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Go to the “Tools” palette and select the “Rounded rectangle” tool. Click and drag the tool to create a horizontal rectangle along one of your front teeth in the photograph to create the first brace.
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Go to “Transform,” under “Edit” in the menu bar, and select “Free Transform” to scale and rotate the brace so that it sits properly on the tooth.
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Double-click on the color of the rounded rectangle in your “Layers” palette to change the color to whatever color of braces you want.
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Hold the “Alt” (for Windows computers) or “Command” (for Mac computers) button on your keyboard and click on the thumbnail of the rounded rectangle in your layers palette to create a selection around it.
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Click the “Create a new layer” button on the “Layers” palette to create a new layer.
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Select the “Gradient” tool from your “Tools” palette. Click on the gradient color options near the top of your screen and change both color handles of the gradient to white. Select the opacity of one of the color handles and change it to zero percent. Change the opacity of the other color handle to 100 percent. Click “OK.”
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Click and drag to create a gradient on top of your rounded rectangle. This gradient will help to mimic the reflection of light off of the braces, so the whiter side of the gradient should be closest to where the lights in the photograph are. For example, if the lights in the photograph are above you, the white portion of the gradient should be at the top of the rounded rectangle.
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Right-click on your rounded rectangle and select “Duplicate Layer.” Name it “metal” and select “OK.”
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Double-click on the color of this new “metal” rounded rectangle in your “Layers” palette to change the color to silver.
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Go to “Transform,” under “Edit” in the menu bar, and select “Free Transform” to scale the “metal” layer so that it is about half the size of the colored, rounded rectangle, and sits directly in the middle of the brace.
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Use the “Ellipse” tool to create four circles on each corner of the “metal” piece and change their color to a very light gray, lighter than the color of the “metal” layer.
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Double-click on the colored, rounded rectangle layer in the “Layers” palette and select “Drop Shadow.” Reduce the opacity, distance, size and spread of the drop shadow until it gives a convincing depth to the brace on the tooth.
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Click the “Create a new group” button on the “Layers” palette, and select all of the layers you have created by using the “Shift” key on your keyboard. Drag all of your created layers into the new group.
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Right-click on the group and select “Duplicate Group …” to create a copy of it. Drag this group to an adjacent tooth and use the “Free Transform” command found under “Edit” in the menu bar, then “Transform,” to rotate and scale it so it looks correct on the tooth.
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Continue to duplicate these groups, scaling and rotating them until you have braces on each tooth in the photograph.
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Select the “Line” tool from the “Tools” palette, and draw a line connecting each of the braces together.
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Double-click on the color of each of the lines in the “Layers” palette to change it to silver. Double-click on the layer itself and add a slight drop-shadow to give a convincing depth to the bars.
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Select “File” from the file menu and click on “Save As ….” Navigate to the folder to which you want to save the photograph, select the format as a .JPG from the drop-down menu, name the file, and click “OK.”
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Log in to your favorite social media website, click on the button that says something similar to “upload” or “share a photo,” navigate to your newly altered photograph with braces and upload it for all your friends to see.
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References
- Photo Credit Thinkstock/Comstock/Getty Images
