Doing the Orton Effect

Here’s the tutorial I promised. If you’re looking into doing the soft focus effect for portraiture, this isn’t it. The Orton Effect is mainly used by photographers for landscape and nature shots. Here’s how it’s done in Adobe Photoshop (CS3 in this case). Actually, the Orton Effect isn’t a modern day digital post-processing technique. It’s been around since the film heydays. The Orton Effect is named after Michael Orton, who first used the technique of merging two negatives, one in focus and the other out of focus to create the effect.

The Orton image has traditionally been done using slide film with the first, sharp, image overexposed by two stops and the second, out of focus image, over exposed by one stop. A tripod is required to ensure that images are similar in composition, but that’s only for film. In Photoshop, this can be done very easily. Of course, it’s not just selecting a filter and gauging the strength.

In under 10 steps (excluding my rotating of the image), here’s how it’s done.

Firstly, open Photoshop (Elements does it well too) along with the desired file. This is IMG_6425, shot in July during the hike. Please ignore the rotation and move along to the next step.

Next, duplicate your background layer. Name that duplicated layer “Sharp”.

Duplicate the layer that was named “Shrap”. This will result in it named “Sharp copy”. That’s two duplicates of the Background layer.

Now, change the blending mode of Sharp copy to Screen.

This will result in an image that’s visually overexposed. Don’t worry, you’re on the right track if it turns out this way. Remember that it’s done that way in film. One in focus, overexposed by 2 stops and the other out of focus and overexposed by a stop.

With Sharp copy selected in the Layer Pallete, right click on it and select Merge Down. This will combine it with the Sharp layer.

Duplicate the Sharp layer and name that layer “Out of Focus”.

With the Out of Focus layer selected in the Layer Pallete, click on Filter and select Blur, then Gaussian Blur.

Right, don’t panic now. Blurring it is part of the process. We’re closing in. Now, the trick to choosing how much blur (radius in pixels) to apply is to just use as much as possible, without smudging the basic shape of the photograph but also hiding the details and textures. I used a value of 24 for a 10.1 megapixel photo.

With that sorted out, have the Out of Focus layer selected and click on the Blending Mode dropdown menu and select Multiply.

And you’re done! There’s your dreamy Orton Effect. I advise processing the base photo if needed before doing the Orton Effect as you’re messing with layers here.

The final result.

Well, that’s it. I hope you enjoyed my tutorial. Happy shooting and editing!