” There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is having lots to do and not doing it. “~John W. Raper, originally uploaded by dmzajac2004-.

Copyright © 2010 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

Today I wanted to try a new technique my friend Geo told me about. It’s called the Orton Effect. Created by Michael Orton in the 1980’s he sandwiched two slides together one in focus, and the other out of focus to create an ethereal painterly quality.
Today we can recreate this effect with a single image in Photoshop. Or do it the original way of taking two photos. One in focus and over exposed 2 stops, and one out of focus and over exposed one stop. Load the photos into Photoshop then do a little blending, and layering et Voila!
Be sure to use a tripod when taking your photos if you plan to use this technique.
It doesn’t work for all types of images, but wooded areas, and winter scenes seem conducive to the technique.
There are a couple of flickr groups devoted to the technique. One is here:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/orton/

I thought this photo I took at Sorensen’s Resort back in Oct. would be nice to try the technique out on. I like it!

Sorensn’s Resort established in 1926 is popular stop along the Hope Valley Fall color route located at the junction of Hwy 88 and Hwy 89.

Nikon D300s| Nikkor 17-35mm @ 17mm| f3.5| 1/60 secon| ISO 200 | Manual Mode| On a Tripod