Unedited Buccal shot

Those blasted buccal shots! Hard to see and hard to be sure that the correct alignment and framing are in the image. Most of the time, I believe that I should see the final picture in my viewfinder before I capture the image. That means less time at the computer and I like that.

These shots, however, are best captured if you back out a little bit and then crop them in your image management software. iPhoto is a very easy-to-use program that works for most novice photographers; it is easy to both crop and straighten an image. The image at the top left of the blog has far more data than we want or need for a buccal occluded shot.

Edited Buccal shot

By simply cropping the image, we have a better composition with less distraction from unwanted objects like retractors.


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Comments

Commenter's Profile Image Mark Gray
June 8th, 2011
Steve, do you take the photos yourself or is this something you turned over to your great team? That central is in need of some serious help!
Commenter's Profile Image Rashpal Deol
June 8th, 2011
The only issue with cropping and adjusting is the extra time someone in the team has to spend doing that. Would you do that while the images are uploaded during the exam or afterwards during some spare time. Also, are you saving all the patient photos in their image management software or just on the server ina separate folder. It takes time managing the photos and putting them in Dexis which I have, so I have just made a separate folder.
Commenter's Profile Image Jade Kim
June 8th, 2011
Only my problem with iphoto is mirror image issue. Because these are mirror image that I want to flip to make it the other side but I don't know how. Do you know? I thought I am pretty familiar with i photo but maybe, I am missing the information.
Commenter's Profile Image Steve Ratcliff
June 8th, 2011
Mark, yes that central is leaving this world on Friday. It is a failed implant. I do the photos myself, mostly because I love learning about photography. It is certainly a skill that a good assistant can learn though. Rashpal, yes it does take time to crop, but I prefer to do that and have an accurate image and I only crop the buccal shots, the rest can be exposed without cropping. I save them in a separate folder since I don't like using the photo programs attached to most dental software programs Jade, you are correct, iphoto can't flip mirror shots, I do that in powerpoint or keynote.
Commenter's Profile Image Jade Kim
June 8th, 2011
Thank you for the information. It is a really big help.
Commenter's Profile Image Rashpal
June 8th, 2011
Thanks!
Commenter's Profile Image Mark Bilello
August 25th, 2014
You can also flip your mirror views horizontally and vertically in Preview on a Mac very quickly. If you highlight multiple images, it will simultaneously flip them…then drag folder of images into iPhoto.