Orton Effect

Adding Orton Effect to Landscape Photos

The Orton Effect blurs your image to give it a dreamy-like quality. It's used a lot among landscape photographers. How much blur  or effect you give your images is totally up to you and a matter of taste. So let's begin...

Open your image in Photoshop and duplicate the layers twice (cmd/ctrl+J). Rename both layers – layer 1 “Sharp” and layer 1 copy “Blur."

On the blur layer, click on  filter on the tool bar > blur > gaussian blur and on the radius slider increase the pixels to taste; usually somewhere between 0.5 – 20 pixels works. On large images up to 25 pixels may be necessary to achieve the desired effect.

Change blend mode (the box labeled Normal) on the blur layer to multiply and blend mode on the sharp layer to screen.

Select both of the Duplicate layers (blur and sharp), go to Layers>Merge Layers (ctrl + E), to collapse these into 1 layer. Now go to the Blend Mode of this layer and change it to Multiply. This will create the Orton Effect.

Reduce the Opacity of this layer as you like it, about 50% opacity usually looks pretty good.

Lastly, flatten or merge all the layers (shift + ctrl + E) and save your work!

Here's the before and after...

Try to be selective in how you apply the Orton Effect. It can soften important textures and fine detail which adds to the image. In this case, mask it out of the areas you don’t want it to be applied. For the image in this blog, the effect was not applied to the waterfalls or parts of the water.

The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it…Psalm 24:1 (NIV)

Be blessed and be a blessing!