The Orton Effect

I was playing around with different effects today and remembered something I'd seen on Olivia's blog last year. It was called the Orton Effect.

 

Vancouver Island's Michael Orton is credited with discovering this photographic effect that essentially sandwiches two images, one that is in focus and the other out of focus to produce a dreamy, impressionistic image.

Photographers Andre Gallant and Freeman Patterson have both used this technique quite successfully in their work. The images seem to have almost the feel of a watercolor painting.

The technique lends itself well to certain photographs, oftentimes landscapes, but I've seen it done on flowers and have liked the effect. There's also a group pool on Flickr, if you'd like to see some beautiful examples.

 

You may be looking at these photos and wondering what the ding dang diddly I'm talking about. But if you look closely, you'll see what I mean. None of these photos had anything done to them other than running the Orton Effect on them.

 

Original SOOC                                                    Orton Effect

Original SOOC                                                    Orton Effect

Original SOOC                                                    Orton Effect

Photoshop users can download the free action created by Mar 1lyn84 here. In one simple click, the effect can be created. Or you can do it yourself by hand, step-by-step in Photoshop, using the technique described here. For these photos, I used the freebie action just to see how it worked.

Ok. I'm done talking now. Hope I haven't put you all to sleep.

Until tomorrow, my friends . . .

All photos were taken this past weekend standing on the eastern shore of Maryland, looking west towards Turkey Point. This is the head of the Chesapeake Bay where it meets the Elk River and is about a half hour from my home.