One of the most useful tools for planning a set of porcelain veneers isn't in our office. It's on your phone. Photos of yourself from 10, 15, or 20 years ago (before your teeth started wearing down, before they chipped, before they started to look different from the ones you remember) tell me something no intraoral exam can. They tell me what "natural" used to look like on your face.

The short answer

When I plan a veneer case at Redefine Dental, I'm not trying to design a smile from scratch. I'm trying to restore the smile you used to have, adjusted for what you want changed and what your face looks like now. Old photos of yourself (especially in natural light, smiling or talking) give me a reference for the shape, proportion, and color of your natural teeth before whatever prompted you to come in. I use those photos alongside current photos, video, and clinical exam findings to build a treatment plan that looks like you, not like a Hollywood smile pasted onto your face.

Why "natural" is different for different people

Every cosmetic dentist will tell you they want your smile to look natural. What most of them won't tell you is that "natural" is a moving target.

Natural tooth shape varies by age, by face structure, by your original genetics, and by habits. A 42-year-old with slightly worn incisors looks different from a 22-year-old with freshly erupted incisors, and both look different from a 65-year-old with significant wear and gum recession.

When you bring photos of yourself from a different moment of your life, I get to see what your teeth looked like at a point when you were comfortable with them. That's data I can't get from your current mouth alone. I can see how your teeth looked in your 20s, how they fit your face then, and how they might fit again if we restore them appropriately.

What I actually do with the photos

When a patient brings me photos, here's what I'm studying.

The curve of the incisal edge

Your incisal edge is the bottom edge of your upper front teeth, the part that shows when you smile or part your lips. The curve of that edge (how it follows the curve of your lower lip when you smile) matters enormously for how natural a veneer case looks.

If I restore your incisal edge in a perfectly straight line across all six upper teeth, the smile will look artificial. Real smiles have a curve, usually with the centrals slightly longer than the laterals, and the canines stepping back again. That curve is personal to your face shape, and it's hard to invent. It's much easier to match to an old photo of you than to guess.

The individual tooth shapes

Your central incisors (the two front teeth) have a shape that's specific to you. Some centrals are more rectangular. Some are more square. Some are more rounded at the corners. The angle where they meet in the middle, the slight asymmetries between left and right, the texture of the surface; these details are part of what makes a smile look like yours.

Old photos let me study those shapes when they were intact, before wear or chipping took them away. I then reproduce them (or refined versions of them) in the porcelain design.

The proportion of tooth-to-tooth

The width ratio between your central incisors, your lateral incisors, and your canines is one of the most studied parts of smile design. The classic ratio (roughly 1.6:1:0.8) is a starting point, but real smiles vary around it. Your particular ratio (what works on your face, with your lip shape and your smile behavior) shows up in old photos.

For patients who come in with severely worn front teeth, the old ratio is often dramatically different from the current one. Without old photos, I'd be designing to an average. With old photos, I'm designing to you.

The color

Tooth color naturally varies across the smile. Canines are usually slightly warmer (more yellow or amber) than centrals. The incisal third of a front tooth is often slightly more translucent than the body. Old photos, especially good-quality ones in natural light, show me what your natural color pattern was before discoloration or wear.

Even when a patient wants to go whiter than their original natural color, the pattern matters. Uniform white across all teeth often looks artificial. A whitened version of the natural color variation often looks like you, just brighter.

A case where old photos changed the plan

A patient I worked with came in for a full mouth restoration. He had significant wear on his front teeth from decades of bruxism. By the time he sat in my chair, his centrals had been ground down to about two-thirds of their original length. His lower teeth were also worn. His smile had the kind of "closed" quality that develops over time when someone has lost confidence in how their teeth look.

Without photos, I could have designed him a restoration based on averages. Standard proportions. Standard shape. Standard color. The result would have been perfectly acceptable and entirely anonymous.

Then he pulled out his phone and showed me photos from his 20s and 30s. His front teeth had a very specific slight forward angulation that made his smile distinctive. The canines had a particular pointed shape. The central incisors met at an angle that was slightly asymmetrical in a way that was characteristic to him.

We designed the restoration to match those specific features, adjusted for his current lip position and face shape. When the temporaries went in, he looked in the mirror and said it was the first time in a decade he'd recognized himself. That recognition is the point.

What kind of photos actually help

Not all photos are equally useful. Here's what I look for:

Best:

• Smiling photos in natural light, shot from the front
• Photos where you're mid-conversation or laughing (captures natural smile behavior)
• Wedding photos, graduation photos, photos from any event where someone took quality pictures of you

Also helpful:

• Group photos where you're clearly smiling
• Older professional headshots
• Any photo where your upper teeth are visible and in focus

Less useful, but not useless:

• Side-profile photos (can help with understanding smile arc)
• Older photos that have been color-shifted or damaged (I can still see shape, even if color is off)
• Photos from before your adult smile was fully established (teenage photos are helpful but sometimes reflect teeth still in formation)

Not useful:

• Photos where your mouth is closed
• Heavily filtered photos (tooth color and texture are manipulated)
• Photos where the teeth are obscured by lipstick color, bad lighting, or shadow

You don't need to come in with a folder of high-quality images. Even three or four phone photos from a decade ago are enough to inform the planning.

How this fits into the larger planning process

The photo review is one part of the planning process I described in another post, the . After the photo review, we typically:

1. Do a full clinical exam (teeth, bite, gum tissue, joint function)
2. Take current photos and a short video
3. Discuss what you want changed and what you want preserved
4. Develop a proposed treatment plan
5. Create a digital mock-up or physical wax-up showing the proposed result
6. Review the plan together before any treatment starts

The photos-of-your-old-self phase is usually early in the first consultation, right after the history-taking conversation. It often reshapes the rest of the appointment, because what we were about to plan may be adjusted once I can see what your teeth used to look like.

When old photos aren't available

Some patients don't have many photos of themselves from earlier decades. Other patients have teeth whose current condition has been consistent their entire adult life, so there's no "before" to reference. In those cases, we rely more heavily on:

• Averages adjusted to your face shape
• Your input on what feels natural to you
• Mock-ups and trial smiles (temporary shapes worn for a few days so you can see how a proposed design actually feels on you)
• Photos of family members with similar smile characteristics, if you're comfortable sharing those

The process still works well without old photos. Old photos just make it faster and more specific to you.

What to bring to your first appointment

If you're coming in for a veneer consultation:

• 3 to 5 photos of yourself smiling in natural light from various points in your adult life, ideally before whatever issue you want corrected started
• A list of things you want changed
• A list of things you want preserved (this one is often skipped, but it's important)
• Any questions about the process

You can bring photos on your phone. No need to print anything. We'll review them together on a screen.

Try it

If you're considering porcelain veneers or any cosmetic restoration in Dallas, take 5 minutes before your appointment to find a few old photos of yourself. Bring them along. The conversation changes when we have them.