Porcelain veneers have been used for several decades to enhance a dental patient's smile. These thin wafers of color-matched dental porcelain are bonded to the visible surface of teeth to mask chips, disfigurements, discoloring, or slight misalignments and gaps. Thanks to the artistry of dentists and dental lab technicians, the average observer often can't distinguish a veneered tooth from a natural one.

Veneers are great—but they're even more life-like and versatile thanks to recent technological advances. Here are a few of these high-tech means that can help make your veneers as attractive as possible.

Digital photography. There's a lot that goes into making sure an individual's veneers seamlessly blend in with other teeth. Photographs in digital form that can be transferred electronically to dental labs are invaluable, especially for accurate color matching. A high-resolution photograph can also relay an enormous amount of information about a patient's existing teeth including shape, size, length, and position.

Computer imaging. We want you to be satisfied with your final veneer appearance. The best way to ensure that—and to relax any jitters you may have over the process—is to enable you to “see” your new smile before your veneers are even made. We can do that with computer imaging software that modifies a current photo of your smile to look as it will be with veneers. It's also a great tool for making changes to the veneer plan based on what you see in the model.

Tryout veneers. We can even take it a step further, by letting you see what your proposed veneers will look like on your own teeth. We do this by creating provisional veneers made of composite materials that we temporarily bond to your teeth. You can try them out for a while (and get others' impressions) until your permanent veneers are ready. And as with computer imaging, tryout veneers can guide updates to your veneer schematics before they're made.

Using these and other advanced techniques can help fine-tune the design of your new veneers to make sure they're the best they can be. They're great tools in achieving our ultimate goal with your veneers—a beautiful smile that everyone thinks is natural.

If you would like more information on the smile-transforming power of dental veneers, please contact us or schedule an appointment for a consultation. You can also learn more about this topic by reading the Dear Doctor magazine article “Porcelain Veneers: Your Smile—Better Than Ever.”

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