How it works.
The eLAB system transforms your digital camera into an easy to use shade matching system, resulting not only in better clinical results but also in improved customer relations. With the eLAB system you can cover the entire natural tooth color spaces with only four dentin shades and three dedicated stains: red, yellow and grey.
Shade matching crowns using a conventional shade guide is limited, by the color perceptibility of the operator recording the shade, limited range of shades in the shade guide and the variation in color between different shade guides and ceramic system. Digital photography can be used by dentist and technician team as versatile tool to communicate both shade and shape map. Another approach developed by renowned dental technician Sasha Hein is e-LAB

In essence , a standardized photograph is taken of the teeth with a specialized gray card the photograph is processed with known parameters and then color data is measured on the image and matched with data that have been measured for ceramic systems and place in to the charts. First step is to capture a standard photography, with DSLR camera and 60-105mm macro-lens,ring flash with a polar eye’s cross polarization filter.

Defined settings are set on the camera (shutter speed 1/125, aperture of f22, ISO 100, manual flash 1/1). The photo is then taken at a standard distance5 with a gray card (white_balance Gray Reference Card, Photo Med) placed in the plane of the neighboring intact teeth. The .raw file of the image is analyzed using photo editing software (Adobe Lightroom, Adobe, adobe.com). White balance and exposure balance are performed based on the gray card.