The Orton Effect

What is the Orton Effect?

The Orton Effect is a post-processing technique that was developed by landscape photographer Michael Orton in the late 1900s. Although the effect is applied differently today than it was in the film era, the technique remains a powerful editing tool for landscape photographers. The effect consists of stacking two different images of the same scene on top of one another and reducing the opacity(transparency) of the top layer. Usually, the top layer will be extremely contrasty, over-exposed, and a touch out of focus.

What does it do exactly?

After the effect is applied, the original image will look much softer than before. Light will appear to bend around objects, colors will blend smoothly, and high contrast details will flow throughout the image rather than distract the viewer. It can make a crispy landscape image far more pleasing to the eye(you are not losing detail though).

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Note the softness in the water on the right.

When should I use it?

There is never really a specific time to use or not use this effect. Artistic decisions are purely up to the editor themselves so if you find the effect beneficial, use it! Personally, I use the effect on almost every one of my images but in varying degrees of intensity. I might apply the effect to only some areas of the image rather than the whole thing. Playing around with the Orton effect is the best way to learn what it is all about.

How do I create the effect?

Creating the effect is extremely easy and with a few tips and tricks, you’ll be right on your way. First, open up photoshop and import your desired image(.tif is preferred). Click on your layer and duplicate it(ctrl+j).

Change your brightness to 20 and contrast to 80 and click OK. Your image should look pretty horrendous at this point. The next step is to go back up to the menu, select filter>blur>gaussian blur.

Set this to the same number of megapixels your camera has. I have a 32MP camera so I set it to 32. Click OK. The last step is to reduce the opacity of your layer.

I usually cut the opacity to somewhere around 12% and never higher than 20%.

Congrats, you’re done!

Conclusion

Hopefully, this article helps out the next time you are editing your landscape photos. Or maybe you can even go back and improve some of your older shots with this awesome technique. Just remember to not overdo the effect as it can make your image look fake, soft, and unappealing to the eye. You’ll also get a bad wrap from other, more critical photographers. When you think it looks perfect, turn it down a touch.

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For a more advanced Orton Effect, try these tricks.

To further improve the image, try making a color range selection and only grab your highlights. Maybe everything above 200, with a fuzziness of 20. Feather that selection and do the same thing you did above to the copied layer(brightness+contrast+blur. You can go anywhere between 10-20% on this layer too. Now you have some real glow and pop in your highlights! You might notice that you’ve incurred a loss of detail in some areas of the image(dense trees, rocks, etc). A quick fix for this is to duplicate your original image, place that layer on top of the others, and head up to your menu. From here select filter>other>high pass. Set this number somewhere between 1 and 2 and click OK. Lastly, change your blend mode to soft light and watch those details come right back!