The
Orton effect
One of the questions I get asked very often is; how
come some of your photographs have such a dreamy look to them? Well, I am
always searching for the magic that was so apparent when I was a little kid
that sometimes I want my photographs to reflect that magic. To do this, I use
something called the Orton effect. The Orton effect gives the illusion of soft
focus while retaining most of the detail and sharpness of the photograph.
Creating the Orton effect is very easy and it can be applied to either landscape-
and portrait photographs. In landscape photography, it will create bloom
lighting, make light softer and colors more intense. In portrait photography it
will make the skin and the light softer. I will show you an example for
each.
Orton in landscape photography
Let’s create a dreamy landscape! For this example I
have chosen a photograph that I took of a young boy that was running into the
sea.
Begin by opening the photograph.
Make your adjustments in Camera Raw as you see fit.
For this example, I have upped the light temperature to approximately 5600K.
If done right, you will see layer 1 appear, meaning you now have two of the same
photographs on top of each other. The next step is applying a Gaussian blur to
the top layer. To do this, make sure you have the top layer selected.
Go
to Filter à
Blur à
Gaussian blur.
In the popup window, select how strong you want the effect to be. You will have to
try different settings until you reach the effect you want. In this example I
have set the blur to 30 pixels (I have done this one before so I know what is
best. It is kind of like cheating J).
You
will now have a very blurry photograph! The next step is to set the screen mode
to “soft light”.
The
result varies on the blur you have added.
In this case, I have just the right amount of contrast, colour and bloom lighting.
If your photograph is too dark or too saturated, you can use the opacity slider
to adjust the top layer.
Orton in portrait photography
Now we know how Orton effect works, we can apply it in
different fields of photography. I use it a lot on portrait photographs as
well. When you apply the Orton effect to a portrait, your will soften the skin
and the lighting on the model. The process is the same, with the example that
you might want to mask out the effect on the eyes and the hair.
As always, start by opening your photograph.
Next, follow the instructions for creating the Orton
effect. Press Ctrl+J to duplicate the
photograph.
With the top layer selected, go to FilteràBluràGaussian
Blur
In this example, the gaussian blur is set to 20 pixels.
Now
change the screen mode to “soft light”.
Oh my, what happened there? The photograph has way to much contrast and
saturation.
To adjust this, you can either go to “New Layer” and select “Vibrance”, or you can
adjust the Opacity of the blurred layer (that is what I mostly do!).
In this example, the opacity is set to 50%, making her skin and the light softer.
Make some further adjustments as you see fit. In this case, I did lower the
vibrancy a bit.
In summary:
- Open the photograph
- Duplicate the background by pressing ctrl+j
- Select FilteràBlurà Gaussian
Blur
- Set desired amount of pixels
- Press OK
- Select screen mode “soft light”
- Set opacity
- Further adjustments
Well there you have one of the Photoshop tricks I use
often. I hope you enjoy trying it for yourself! Until next time!
