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.
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.
