THE ORTON EFFECT- a tutorial

Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 5:59 am

“Orton Effect”?
It's been around for a bit but it's been popping up on the web lately and the usual response is "Huh??", or when they see an example, “Cool! How do you do that??”

It’s a method that adds a unique “look” to a photo. Not quite "glow", not quite "soft focus". It’s not hard, can be used with any program that has Layers, gives a unique look to landscapes, flowers, portraits, whatever, and the best way to describe it is to just show you. Maybe your remember this one- it’s my brother taken last year:

THE ORTON EFFECT

1- Open the image, then open your Layers palette.
2- Duplicate the Background layer (right click it/Duplicate) and name it Sharpen.
3- Duplicate the Background layer again and name it Copy.
4- Move the Copy layer to the top (just click and drag it to the top).
5- With the Copy layer selected, change the Blending Mode to Screen.
6- Now right click that layer and choose Merge Down.
7- Right click on the Sharpen layer and choose Duplicate, and name it Orton. (If it isn’t automatically created as the top layer, just move it there).
8- With the Orton layer selected, go to your menu and choose Filter/Blur/Gaussian Blur (for us PSP guys Blur is under the Adjustment menu). You want to blur this layer enough so that shapes are still visible, but detail is not. For this example I used 5.0.
9- Now for the good part- change the Blending Mode of the Orton layer to Multiply.
10- Now adjust each layer to suit. The Orton layer probably looks best with the Opacity at about 80% or so. If the picture is too dark or light (this one wasn’t), you can add a Brightness/Contrast Adjustment Layer, over-do the adjustment, and then backoff on the opacity to suit. You can use the Sharpen layer to add additional sharpness if you want.
11- When it's like you want it, flatten the layers (or Merge All) and save.

And you end up with this:

More examples:
Original lighthouse:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v27/goofup/misc/lighthouse1.jpg
With Orton Effect:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v27/goofup/misc/lighthouseorton.jpg

Original flower picture:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v27/goofup/misc/Flower4.jpg
With Orton Effect:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v27/goofup/misc/Flowerorton.jpg

Just remember, like any other effect it can be overused and overdone (selective coloring comes to mind!) and isn’t for every picture, but at least now you know what it is and how to do it if you need it.

Enjoy!

Joined: 29 Apr 2006 Posts: 14

Thanks a lot Goof Up.....this is the most useful photoshop action I have seen and tried.....Thanks a million for sharing.....