WordPress Websites are Easy; Plugins Can Cause Problems

I have been using self-hosted WordPress for both Dental Digital Photography and my Charlotte NC dentist office website, SmilesbyPayet.com.  For the most part, it’s a very easy platform to install, learn, and use, and that’s why I recommend it.  It doesn’t hurt that the platform itself is FREE, most plugins are free, and you can host it for less than $10/month in several places.

However, there are times when something can go wrong, and when you’re in control of your own websites, that means you also have to fix them……if you know how.  With a little experience, Google, and all the support available around the Web, this usually isn’t a problem.  This week, however, I ran into a problem that caused me some real headaches.  I don’t know exactly how or when it happened, but something went wrong on my dental office website, which is really bad, because that’s how we get most of our new patients every month.  The entire website wasn’t broken, but it looked like this:

Looking at the main content section in the middle, it’s obvious something was screwing up the fonts and formatting, and it looked WEIRD!  And while I knew how to check for some problems, none of the ones that I knew worked!  PANIC TIME!  LOL  But fortunately, not really — I knew there were some people on DentalTown.com who could probably help, if they were available, so I started a new thread there asking for assistance, and Colin Receveur answered – thank goodness!

Trouble-shooting WordPress

Basically, Colin offered for me to call him up, and he’d see if he could help.  Given how important this was, I called immediately – at 8pm in the evening!  Colin and I then spent the better part of NINETY MINUTES (90) on speakerphone and using Join.me to screenshare, while we (mostly HE, I just helped check how things looked on my end) went through the website, looking for errors.  The culprit seemed to be a plugin, but we had a lot of difficulty narrowing it down to which one or ones it was.  Thankfully, however, Colin knows WordPress pretty darn well, and he eventually isolated a single line of code that referenced a Stylesheet for the Shareaholic social sharing plugin, which was apparently the problem!  WOW!

Expert WordPress Help for Dentists

Without going into all the technical details (many of which were over my head anyway), Colin fixed my website.  Even more amazingly, he didn’t charge me for it, which is crazy, but apparently that’s the kind of guy he is.  Being the kind of guy that I am, though, there is no way I can let that go without SOME attempt to thank/repay him for his generosity, knowledge, and assistance – hence this post.  :-)

If you are looking for someone to build a new website for your dental office, I personally recommend Colin.  Given how much I already know, it is clear to me that he knows his stuff, and I am confident that you will be pleased with his work.  If you do hire him, please come back and let me know your experience in the comments!

Use Photoshop to Remove Facial Hair

If you’ve done enough cosmetic dentistry and Before/After portraits, especially of women, you will almost certainly hear one or both of the following comments, which will always start off the same way:  ”Of course you can put my portrait on the wall or your website, doctor, as long as you…..

1. ….just get rid of all those wrinkles!” OR
2. ….as long as you get rid of those moles/facial hair/sun spots!”

It doesn’t matter if the woman is 26 years old and the only wrinkles are in her imagination, if she sees her photo on your wall, website, Facebook page, etc. and hates it, you will never hear the end of it. Of course you should use a solid Photo Consent Form, but I always let a woman proof her final photo before I print it or put it on the wall; why take a chance?  Guys usually couldn’t care less, and let’s be clear….these tips should only be used for womens’ portraits 99% of the time unless a man specifically requests something.  

Photoshop Elements 11 or Photoshop CS6 ?

The video tutorial to follow is done in Photoshop CS6, and I’ve been using the full version of Photoshop (PS) since version CS2; prior to that, I used Photoshop Elements.  The current version of  Elements (PSE) is version 11, and it is a pretty powerful and very affordable program if you don’t want to spend the money on Photoshop, and you should be able to do these edits in PSE, too.  I just personally prefer the full version.  I find that Photoshop Lightroom (LR) is more intuitive program to learn, as everything is laid out more easily.

How to Reduce or Eliminate Unwanted Facial Hair, Sun Spots, and Moles

There are only 2 tools you will need for this exercise:

• Duplicate Layer
• Clone Tool on “Lighten” Mode or “Darken” Mode

Don’t forget to check out the short video tutorial at the bottom of the page, too!

Create A New Year Folder with Sub-headings

I’ve already discussed how I recommend organizing your Folder Hierarchy, and that hasn’t changed, although I changed a couple folder names this year, as you can see in this screenshot.  You can tell I did it before the end of 2012, as there wasn’t a single photo loaded into this year yet.

Of course, this is completely customizable depending on your procedure mix and desire to separate, or not separate them out as much as I do.

Create a New Copyright Metadata Preset for Import

To help protect your photos from online theft and misuse, make sure you read Image Copyright Protection; and now it’s time to create a NEW Metadata Preset.  Please DO NOT just “update” the one that you have; if you do so, every image to which you had applied the old one, i.e. for 2012, will now suddenly read as if it were taken in 2013 instead, which is wrong.  CREATE A NEW PRESET!

To do so, you must first be in the Library Module, then go to “Photos > Edit Metadata Preset” and you’ll come to this screen, and you can just enter the appropriate data for your practice.  As you can see at the bottom, in the box labeled “Keywords,” I’ve added just one keyword – 2013.  This is just to avoid having to add it to every photo.

And you’re set to go!

How to Take Digital Photos of Film X-rays

There used to be some flatbed scanners available that could be used to scan individual x-rays, panoramics, and full-mouth series, but as I understand it, those are fairly expensive and not easy to find any longer, probably  because the demand wasn’t very high.  So if you want to digitize your old film x-rays to load into your PMS, whether for simple archiving and space storage, or to make it easier for your team to access them quickly, the easiest way to do so is using a DSRL.  Here’s what you’ll need to do, but bear in mind you’ll need to experiment a little due to lighting conditions in your office, and depending on the quality of the x-rays.

• A DSLR
• Camera and lens must be on Manual mode
• An x-ray viewing box
• You can change the camera to shoot in B&W, or you can change it later
  • I suggest leaving the camera on your normal color mode, as it’s REALLY irritating if you forget to change it back from B&W and take a whole series of shots in B&W that you didn’t mean to do.
  • If you shoot in RAW, as I recommend, it won’t make any difference anyway, it’s super-easy to change in Lightroom
• TURN THE FLASH OFF!. This is really critical – the flash will ruin them all
• TURN THE OPERATORY LIGHTS OFF
• Shutter speed: 1/80
• f-stop (aperture): 5.6
  • lower f-stops let in more light, and since the x-ray is flat, you don’t need much depth of field
• ISO: 800
• Zoom in as tightly as you can to minimize light around the edge of the x-rays.

As you begin taking your first photos, if you need to make some changes, here are some tips:

1. If possible steady your hand on a counter to minimize hand-shake under the low-light conditions.
2. When experimenting with settings, only change one at a time
3. The first setting to experiment with is the ISO.  If the settings above give an image a little too dark, increase the ISO before changing anything else
4. With cameras prior to 2010, ISO 800 may be the highest you can go without too much noise/grain appearing in your photos .
5. With cameras from 2012 and on, you can probably go as high as ISO 2000 or even 4000 without much noise, but you won’t need to do so.
6. The second setting to change if necessary is the f-stop.  Drop it lower (smaller number), but it will be a bit tougher to keep the image in focus if you get all the way down to f/2.8
7. A shutter speed of 1/80 is probably the lowest you’ll want to go; much lower than that, and your hands will be harder to keep steady enough to prevent shake.

Good luck!  If you have other tips for successfully converting old film x-rays to digital, I’d love to hear about them, too!

Adobe Lightroom Smart Collections for Dentists

One of the most powerful and useful tools for dentists managing their dental photography catalogs, is the Lightroom Smart Collections feature.  Based (usually) on keywords that you’ve assigned to your photos, whether on importing them or adding them later, Smart Collections automatically collect all photos with a given keyword.  You can also create Smart Collections to collect photos with a certain Rating (1-5 stars), Color Label (red, green, yellow, purple, blue), Metadata (date taken, GPS location if your camera has this feature, etc), or even combinations of criteria.

Keep Your Patient Photos Well-Organized

I’ve already discussed a basic structure for organizing dental pictures previously, and as long as you remember the year and procedure type, this can be an easy way to find a patient, because that name should show up in the list of patients under that procedure.  However, if you’ve been practicing long enough and taking enough pictures, this is not always easy.  Where I live, Charlotte NC, is a highly transient area, with lots of professionals moving into and out of town, so we tend to have high patient turnover rates.  In addition, we often have patients driving long distances for our unique combination of services, including LANAP Laser Periodontal Therapy^TM, Six-Month Braces, and Cerec Same-Day Crowns, and those patients return to their regular family dentist after their treatment with us is complete.  It’s hard to remember patients we don’t see regularly, right?

Setting Up Your Smart Collections

When thinking of all the possible ways and combinations you could set up Smart Collections, the enormous possibilities can seem daunting.  Remember, though, you only need to do this for image sets that you really want to track over time.  This type of organization is very useful for dental lecturers and for anyone wanting to use your own photos in your marketing.  Theoretically, this might include sets as follows:

• Dental Implants
  • Straumann
  • Implant Direct
  • Blue Sky Bio
• Porcelain Veneers
• Crowns
  • Lab-made
  • Cerec
• Whitening
• Six-Month Braces
• Invisalign

Smart Collections Save Time

If you’re anything like I am, with a dental photo catalog of nearly 65,000 images over the last 8 years, and you want to find photos of a given subject, without having to remember every patient name and sort through them all, Smart Collections are the way to go.  Because they  AUTOMATICALLY collect every photo in your catalog with the criteria you select, they’re a huge time-saver.

Learn to use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Smart Collections, and you’ll make your life so much easier, any time you need to find one or more photos, but don’t remember the patient’s name, or if you want to find photos from a lot of patients of a certain procedure, material, etc.

Please let me know in the comments if you have any questions, or if you’ve found other easy ways to organize your photos!

To Choose a Scope, Get a Demo

After having used a rented Zeiss OMPI Pico 5-step DOM for 3 years, in 2012 it was time to finally purchase my own.  In fact, we needed 2 scopes to continue our growth, as it was very limiting to only have 1 op to schedule many procedures.  With a lot of changes in technology over those 3 years, I knew it was important to do demos again.

I was able to schedule demos with Leica, Zeiss, and Seiler; I was not able to contact anyone with Global, but had demo’d a Global G6 in 2009 during my initial scope trials.  The Zeiss that I’d rented had a halogen light source, which is rather yellow in color and the least bright of all light sources available, and I wanted brighter.

I was able to demo a Zeiss with Xenon, Seiler Revolution with Metal halide, and Leica with Dual LED.  While each of them is an excellent scope in its own right, I ultimately chose a Leica M320, for the reasons listed below.

The Leica Advantages

Factors That Didn’t Play a Role

The polar_eyes Cross-Polarizing Filter

 I first learned about this revolutionary new filter design on Facebook from Dr. Jason Smithson, whose composite resin artistry easily rivals that of the best lab technicians. Designed by Dr. Panaghiotis Bazos, a Greek dentist trained at the University of Southern California (Class of 2000), this filter is easily attached to Canon, Nikon, Sigma, and Metz ring flashes.

Color is Complicated

Just recently,  Dr. Lane Ochi posted an Online CE Course on DentalTown.com that uses Color Theory to teach how we perceive color, and while I had learned some of this earlier, he gives the most thorough description I’ve seen – highly recommended.  Fair warning – you’ll probably want to review it several times to really absorb the material, because he packs a LOT into that 1-hour course.

In simple terms, however, one of the biggest challenges we face when taking shades for cosmetic dentistry, whether porcelain or composite, is the reflection of light from the teeth, whether that reflection comes from overhead lights, ceiling lights, or the camera flash.  The human eye has difficulty dealing with how that reflection can hide details of color.  And given that most of us aren’t trained in truly understanding color, even if we can see it, how do we communicate it to the lab?   For years, dentists have used different kinds of shade-matching devices, but based on many reviews, none of them have been particularly easy to use, and most of them are expensive.

Eliminate the Glare, and What’s Left is Color and Brightness

Take a look at this example photo (courtesy of Dr. Bazos), and what do you see?  On the right side of the photo is what we typically see in DSLR photos taken with a ring flash, and on the left side is how teeth look  when photographed using the same exact settings and the polar_eyes cross-polarizing filter.  The difference is striking and easy to understand.

Since this blog is dedicated to making dental photography easy-to-understand, at this time, I am not going to discuss what exactly cross-polarization is, because it’s not really necessary to understand it to use this cool little device.  Perhaps at a later date.

The polar_eyes is incredibly easy to install, but it’s a little tricky to keep in place for Canon flashes due to the flash design (not the filter design).  Attached by a set of stick-on magnets, it is easily set up on your flash in about 2 minutes (if you’re really slow at reading the directions).  Press the sticky side of the magnets to a clean flash surface, and you’re good to go!  The filter is removed by gently sliding the filter up for down – you don’t want to pull it off, as the magnets can pull off, too.  Don’t ask me how I know, ok?  ;-)

Where to Buy the polar_eyes?

Dr. Bazos has made the polar_eyes exclusively available through www.Photomed.net in the USA.  Outside the USA, you will need to contact Dr. Bazos directly.

Cost: This is the absolute best part – it’s only $499!  Extra sets of magnets (highly recommended by me to be on the safe side) will be a bit more, but as of the time I purchased mine, the price for them had not yet been determined.  But compared to almost any other system currently available, this is super-affordable and amazingly easy to use.  Literally, the first time you take a photo with it and look, you will love it.

More details and tutorials will be upcoming, so be on the lookout.

The NY Photowalk with Joel Tjintjelaar & Co.

As I mentioned in my previous post about the Google+ One-Year Anniversary Photowalk, Google+ has become a worldwide forum for photographers of all levels, and many of the world’s best photographers do post and interact there.  Pretty darn cool, if you ask me.  :-)  Many of those amazing photographers offer hands-on learning seminars in the field, just as with hands-on dental CE, and those seminars are a great way to expand your knowledge of photography.

One such event is the NY Photowalk, which will be held this coming November 10-14, 2012, with some international award-winning photographers:

• Joel Tjintjelaar
• Sharon Tenenbaum
• Armand Dijcks

Get Out There and Have FUN with your Camera!

In all seriousness, photography has become one of my most-enjoyed hobbies ever, and it is both a fun challenge and just pure enjoyment to get out the camera and gear and go shoot with no purpose in mind but to have FUN!

As it happens, there are 3 places where I’ve nurtured the enjoyment of photography, while learning some of the finer points of both shooting and post-processing images, usually with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Photoshop CS6; these days, I’m also experimenting with Nik’s software, such as HDR Efex 2, Silver Efex 2, and a couple others.  These 3 places are:

1. The Aspiring Photographer’s thread on DentalTown (you have to be a dental professional to be a member)
2. The FredMiranda.com Landscapes forum
3. Google+

In the year since Google+ launched, it has become one of the biggest worldwide communities of photographers, and it is amazing to see the talent shared there.  I do find that FredMiranda.com is a better place to receive constructive critique, because it’s easier to be noticed there if you start a thread, while it’s easy to be buried in the constant stream of photos, and you need to be noticed and circled by enough people to have your images spread, but still…….G+ is great.

The Google Plus One-Year Photowalk

June 30th, 2012 happened to be the Google+ One-Year Anniversary, so a man named Thomas Hawke started the idea of a worldwide Photowalk to be held that day, and the response was phenomenal!  Here in Charlotte, NC we had nearly 20 people show up, which was even more remarkable given the 100-105 degree temperatures.  Getting together with a bunch of other people, none of whom I’d met previously, ended up being a lot of fun and pushed my photographic limits, as I’ve never done much architectural or street photography.  But here are a few shots from that blistering Saturday evening:

If you’re paying attention, you’ll notice that I have not placed any watermarks on these photos.  Given my recent blog posts, you may wonder why, and there’s a fairly simple reason….I’m just not worried about anyone stealing these images.  Naturally, I would prefer that they not, but none of these shots is likely to be worthy of selling prints or otherwise being highly valuable.

But the real message: if you want to get GOOD at photography, and if you want to learn the most about it, get the camera out of the office and go shoot some stuff besides teeth!

Please share links to your own photo galleries, websites, or tell me what you enjoy shooting outside the office in the comments.