Digital smile design: what you see before the work starts
The short answer: you see your future teeth twice. First on a screen, as a model laid over a photograph of your face. Then in your mouth, as a try-in made of temporary material that you can wear, smile with and look at in the mirror. Preparation and permanent ceramic begin only after you have said yes to the try-in.
How it works
Photos and scanning
Pictures of the face and the smile from several angles, plus a digital impression of the teeth. The model comes out three-dimensional, with no tray and no impression paste.
The model on screen
Shape, length and position are modelled over your own photograph. You see how the smile relates to the line of the lips and the features of the face, not on its own.
Try-in in the mouth
The model is transferred into the mouth in temporary material, over the teeth, with no preparation. You speak, smile and look in the mirror — this is no longer a picture.
Changes and consent
A bit too long, a corner too sharp, you would like it softer — say so and the shape is changed. The work starts after your agreement, not before it.
What can be changed at the try-in
The length of the front teeth
A millimetre longer or shorter and the smile reads differently. This is the change people ask for most often at the try-in.
The shape of edges and corners
Straight edges look stricter, rounded ones softer. The choice follows the features of your face, not a fashion.
Width and the gaps between teeth
How closely the teeth stand to one another, and whether dark triangles remain between them near the gum.
How white to go
The shade is chosen against a physical guide in daylight and checked against your skin and the whites of your eyes. The whitest is not the most suitable.
What smile design does not solve
The try-in is not ceramic
The temporary material is more matt and thicker than the finished work. You can judge shape and length by it, but not the translucency of the edge — that appears only in ceramic.
Colour on a screen is approximate
A monitor and a phone show the shade differently. That is why colour is chosen not from a picture but from a physical guide held next to your face.
Design does not treat the bite
If the teeth do not meet correctly, a beautiful shape will not remove the problem. The bite is dealt with first, the aesthetics after.
It is not a substitute for orthodontics
Marked crowding can be masked with ceramic, but at the cost of healthy tissue. The dentist is obliged to say when straightening the teeth is the more honest route.
Common questions
What else to look at
Hollywood smile
When the whole smile line changes: stages, timing and price.
Minimal preparation
How much enamel has to come off and what that depends on.
Veneers
Indications, materials and how the work goes.
Send a photo of your smile — we will discuss what to change in it
From the pictures the dentist will say what can realistically be changed by shape and where a different route is needed. That is a conversation before the trip, not after it.