The Liquify Tool is found under the Filter menu…
Copy the starting picture into Photoshop.
Click on the lock icon for the Background layer to unlock it…
This renames it to “Layer 0”.
Delete it.
Right-click on the photo and Convert to Smart Object.
Rename the layer ‘Smile’.
Liquify
Go to the Filter menu and choose Liquify.
This opens a new window. Reduce the size so you can still see these instructions…
Zoom in on the face. Also move it horizontally using the Hand Tool (hold Space Bar or the scroll bar on the bottom).
Select the Face tool.
Smile
Drag the curve of the mouth upward. To adjust the smile, hover your cursor over one of the two Smile icons (the curved dotted line on either side of the mouth). Your cursor will change into a curved double arrow, and the tool tip will display “Smile”:
Then, to bend and reshape the curve of the mouth, just click and drag upward:
Another way to reshape the smile is by dragging the Smile slider in the Properties panel along the right of the dialog box.
To compare the new smile with the original, toggle the Preview option on and off by clicking inside its checkbox.
Here’s the original and the new smile…
Mouth Width
Don’t drag too far, since we still want our subject to look like herself (or himself). We’re just widening the smile a little bit.
You can also adjust the lips a bit – make the top a bit thinner and the bottom.
Cheeks
When we smile, it’s not only our mouth that curves upward. Our cheeks also push upward.
Try to follow the natural curve of the mouth as you click on the left cheek and drag it upward and a bit to the left. Then do the same thing with the right cheek, dragging it upward and slightly to the right:
Here’s an example of before and after. You can see the cheeks look less flat.
Eyes
By raising the cheeks, we also slightly raised the height of the eyes. But generally, people tend to look friendlier and more relaxed with the eyes lower. So let’s bring the eyes back down, and again, we can do that using the Face Tool.
You can even drag the eye a bit lower than its original height to give your subject a warmer, friendlier look. Press “P” on your keyboard to toggle the preview on and off so you can compare the original eye height with the new height.
Here’s a before and after…
Forward Warp
Choose the Forward Warp tool…
Change the size of the brush so it’s big enough to include a bit of the area around the corner.
Click and drag the corner a short distance upward:
Do the same thing with the other side, centering the corner of the mouth within the brush cursor and then dragging upward:
Close the Liquify window by clicking on OK.
Now you can preview by toggling the visibility icon for the Liquify filter.
