De-identify — make a patient photo safe to post

Sometimes you have a great clinical photo but no signed consent — or you’d rather not need one. De-identifying removes everything that could identify the patient, so the result is safe to use in marketing without a consent record.

How to use it

1. Open Photo Studio → De-identify and upload the photo.
2. With Crop to smile selected, drag a box around the part to keep — usually just the teeth and lips. Everything outside is removed.
3. Switch to Blur a spot and drag over anything still identifying — an eye, a mole, a tattoo. Add as many as you need.
4. Press De-identify & save. The result lands in your Library marked “de-identified”.

Photo metadata — the hidden location, device, and date a phone records — is always stripped, even if you don’t crop or blur.

Heads up

De-identifying is only as good as your crop. Always look at the result before using it and make sure nothing identifying slipped through. When in doubt, crop tighter — or get the patient’s consent and use the Smile Gallery instead.

Why this skips the consent step

A photo that shows no identifiable patient isn’t patient marketing — it’s just a picture of teeth. Removing the face, identifying marks, and metadata takes the image out of the rules that require consent, which is why de-identified images can go straight into a post.

Worked example

A clinic has a striking photo of a finished veneer case but never collected a marketing consent. The manager opens De-identify, crops tight to the smile so the patient’s eyes and face are gone, blurs a small distinctive freckle near the lip, and saves. The Library now holds a clean, anonymous smile photo — ready for an “our work” post, no consent record required.