How to create a Digital Orton

This technique was originally created by Michael Orton using slide film to create the effect. Here's the basic technique using film. You take 2 shoots of a scene (identical compositions), the first would be sharply in focus (shot for maximum depth of field) and deliberately overexposed by 2 stops. The second shot will then be thrown completely out of focus (shot wide open) and overexposed by 1 stop. Then the 2 pieces of film are placed together in one mount, the resulting sandwich will be perfectly exposed and have a soft painterly quality to it.

As with most things in PhotoShop, there are several ways to achieve the same or similar effect. Here are 2 techniques to digitally create an "Orton" from any existing digital image.

Method 1

1. Make 2 copies of your original image (Background) Hit (Ctrl+J) twice. Name them Layer 1 and 2.

2. Change blending mode of the top Layer 2 to "Screen", this gives the effect of an overexposed image.

3. Change blending mode of Layer 1 to "Multiply"

4. Now blur both Layer 1 and 2 (Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur) in the dialog box use a setting between 10 to 40 pixels. Try several settings for different effects, the greater the radius the more painterly the effect. But it really depends on your image and the effect you want to create.

5. Change the opacity of Layer 1, in this example it is set to 70%.

6. You may want to make adjustments in Curves or Levels at this point as well. This is usually a necessary step.

7. Flatten the Image and Save.