Digital Dental Photography

Digital Photography and Workflow for Dentists

Patient Education with Pictures

Photosmith iPad App Syncs with Lightroom

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Ever since the iPad was released, many apps have been developed for photographers, but none have had much real editing functionality, nor the ability to easily work with desktop photography software.  The Photosmith app is finally a real sign of change, and for dentists, this will be terrific.  With the Camera Connection Kit, here’s all you have to do:

  1. Take the pictures with your DSLR;
  2. Plug the camera into the iPad with the Camera Connection Kit
  3. Open the “Photos” app and import all the pictures (or just selected ones)
  4. Open (or switch to) the Photosmith for iPad app
  5. Show your patients
  6. Create folders, add color or star ratings, keyword tags, other info
  7. At the end of the day, sync all the pictures to Lightroom and it keeps all that info!

Press Release

 

Photosmith brings Lightroom synchronization to the iPad

Photosmith introduces sorting and tagging to photographers on the go

Atlanta, GA. April 26, 2011 – C Squared Enterprises, Inc has released Photosmith for the iPad. Photosmith brings the ability to manage photos using collections, keywords, tagging, ratings, EXIF, and IPTC metadata. Photographers no longer need to wait until they get back to their main computer or drag a laptop to sort through photos or show clients their latest results. With Photosmith, photographers can load their photos directly on the iPad, filter, sort, rate, and keyword while in the field/studio. When they get back to Adobe Lightroom on their Mac or PC they can sync all photos from the iPad to Lightroom and all of their tagging and rating will also transfer with no need to duplicate effort.

Photosmith improves the photographer’s digital workflow, especially flows with RAW images. Photosmith offers viewing of full RAW image data from the latest dSLR cameras in full fidelity and up to 100% zoom; even on 25+ megapixel images. Photosmith offers a grid view for quickly sorting through thumbnails and collections, a loupe view for viewing individual images and tagging, and a full screen view to maximize use of the screen. Users can assign a rating, choose a color label, view the basic EXIF data (shutter speed, ISO, f/stop, and more), or edit the title, caption, or a number of other IPTC fields. All these settings are synchronized with Lightroom using the free Photosmith plugin. Future changes made in Lightroom are saved back to the iPad during a sync as well. See more at: http://bit.ly/PhotosmithTour

Photosmith assists photographers on the go with sharing their photos too. Photos can be sent to Flickr, Facebook, Dropbox, or email. Those sent to Flickr and Facebook maintain their titles and keywords, allowing pros to quickly share and get feedback from their clients, or allows the causal photographer to share photos while on vacation.

Photosmith is the culmination of 24 months of effort and development continues to add new features over time. Users are encouraged to submit feedback and suggestions to help drive the future of the app.
The app is available worldwide for US$17.99 (or the approximate equivalent).

For more information please visit http://www.photosmithapp.com

Show Your Patient the Problem with Pictures

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If you already use digital photography, you probably know how much easier it is to communicate with patients using pictures of their own teeth.  Today was a perfect example of why you should be doing this, and then how you can turn that into communication with your entire patient base!

A Cracked Tooth but No Pain & the Patient Doesn’t Believe You

Ever had this happen before?  You start prepping a simple DO composite on a molar or premolar due to some interproximal decay you saw on a bitewing, and maybe you’re replacing an existing amalgam or composite, and suddenly you’re staring at a crack that runs the entire mesio-distal width of the tooth, and you have to tell the patient s/he needs a crown.

Even better, the patient has had absolutely no symptoms, and maybe is a new patient whom you know to have had a bad experience with their last dentist and who didn’t want to fix something that wasn’t causing any symptoms.

I was fortunate that this (kinda) scenario happened with a long-time patient today, and so I didn’t have to deal with any of the issues in the second paragraph, but just take a look at the photos:

Preop, I knew there were at least some craze lines both mesially and distally, but would you have thought these were really that bad?  Even with my Zeiss PICO microscope at 8.8x magnification, I was anticipating a simple DO, maybe MOD composite.

OOPS!  This was NOT what I expected, although we’ve all seen it plenty of times.

So I questioned her again, and she repeated that she had had NO symptoms, which is really a good thing, of course, but a bit surprising.

Without a Picture, How Do You Communicate with Patients?

At work, I still use a Canon Digital Rebel XTi, which is probably 2.5 years old, and the screen isn’t very big.  Nevertheless, I just zoomed in and showed the patient this picture, explaining that the blue dye was highlighting the crack so she could see it well.  Do you think she had any hesitation in accepting the need for a crown instead of a filling?  Nope!

Blogging, Email Blasts, & the iPad for Patient Education

OK, so this patient quickly understood (literally about 10 seconds) why she needed a crown (nearly $1200 in my practice) instead of a 3-surface composite (about $295-ish).  But what if you’d like to show a lot of patients this?

  • I’ve already written a blog post about this topic: Why Does a Tooth with a Small Filling Need a Crown?
  • Tomorrow I will send out an email blast through Constant Contact or Mail Chimp (I’m still experimenting with which one I like) to my entire patient base, alerting them to this important information.
  • The blog post will automatically feed into my Facebook Fan Page for The Charlotte Dentist
  • I will also load these photos into the “Cracked Tooth” demonstration for the DDS GP YES! app for my iPad so my staff can show patients with similar situations these photos; do you think they’ll have any more difficulty understanding than my patient today did?
  • Next I can upload these photos to my Flickr account, Picasa Web Albums, or more — with the right alt text tags and links back to my Charlotte dental practice website, I can build my web presence and SERPs.  Heck — did you notice that, in this one blog post, I just created 3 links back to my website?  Over time, these links add authority and “link juice” to boost my rankings!