Salvage an Out-of-Focus Picture in Photoshop Elements Using the Orton Effect

When life gives you lemons, call your blurry photo glowing & dreamy!

Sometimes, a picture is just plain out-of-focus, and no amount of sharpening can make it look good.  The Orton Effect is beautiful on many shots – I especially love it in landscapes.  Plus, it works great when you need to disguise an out-of-focus blur.

Rita at CoffeeShop Free Actions has an Orton Effect action available for download.  Try it, or if you want to do it from scratch, here is the technique:

Orton Effect Technique

• Start with a flattened image and duplicate the background layer twice (right click on the background layer and select Duplicate).
• The Blending Mode of the top layer should be Screen.
• Right click on the top layer and select Merge Down.
• Duplicate the new top layer.
• Select Blur/Gaussian Blur from the Filter Meun.
• To start with, enter a radius value of 20.  You can experiment with this value once you get the hang of the Orton Effect.
• Change the Blending Mode of this top layer to Multiply.  Adjust its opacity as needed.
• If you’d like, you can add a Levels Adjustment layer above the background layer to perfect the colors.