Bride with Mouth Braces ??

For my next wedding the Bride has mouth braces.

I have done my best to reassure her but she is still very self

concious and is uncomfortable with having her photo taken.

I will obviously try and avoid shots where they are prominant.

Has anyone has a similiar situation? Has any had success in removing

them via Photoshop?

taking them off is no problem. just zoom in as close as you can in photoshop, it is a

piece of cake. . . make sure her smile is big enough that you get some of the white -

without braces - to clone from.you can do it!!!!

monica

While removing braces is not that hard of a job, when you multiply it by the number of photos a bride will be in at her wedding, you are talking about an impossibly long job were you to remove all instances of the braces (see my post below re retouching).

I would talk to her about the closed-mouth smile...where the corners are upturned (not too much) but the mouth is closed. Some people just can't do this, so if she can't, you will just have to deal with braces removal. If you can, try shooting digital frames of her before the wedding, and if she is successful in doing the closed mouth smile, her confidence will improve and she might not feel so uncomfortable.

Or, discuss in advance, possible retouching. You might reach a compromise of up to x photos where you do the retouching, but not all.

The ultimate fix is for the bride to accept her appearance as it currently is. At some point, you have to make a decision as to whether you're photographing an event that took place, or painting a picture of how people would have liked it to look.

I've noticed with school-age kids (IE, teens), that they may be self-conscious about braces, but nobody else seems to worry about them, or really even consider them a cosmetic flaw. If you can manage to get this idea across to the bride, all concerned will be better off.

If the bride is that sensitive, you may suggest that she visit her orthadontist and have the braces removed for her wedding. The cost of that may be less than the cost of retouching teeth in all those pictures.

Then again, if she has major issues, the closed smile approach may be best.