Another Attempt at the "Orton Effect"

I was just itching to try this again.  This time I used a shot of some old typewriters I took in Molson (a very cool ghost town in Washington state).

Here is the original  image straight out of the camera:

And after editing, using only the PSE guided "Orton Effect" and then adding a soft dark edge:

I'm loving this!  Can't wait to do more!!

So after investigating a bit on the internet, it looks like the guided "Orton Effect" was added with PSE version 10.   I did however find lots of tutorials showing how to manually create the same effect in either Photoshop or PSE, all of which looked fairly simple.  I plan to try some of them out to see how they compare to the effect provided in 10 & above (I'm currently using version 11).

The Orton Effect

In PS Elements 11 (and probably in other versions as well) there is something called the "Orton Effect".  It can be found under the "Guided" tab and then "Photo Effects".  In my effort to learn more and try new things, I thought I'd give it a go.

Since flowers seem like a natural subject to use a "soft, dreamy" effect on, I chose this shot I took of a lovely bouquet from a friend. (Thanks Joyce! And to think every one of these came out of her own yard!)

So I've never tried this before and since I'm usually trying to get crisp, sharp images it feels a little wrong to intentionally set about blurring a shot... but here we go...

Looking at a close up section of the before and after, my gut tells me I've absolutely ruined it! But when I look at the overall effect on the whole image and I kind of like it.

This may not be a prize winner, but keep in mind it was a first attempt..  If you don't like what you see here, please don't let it discourage you from trying it out for yourself. I'm sure there is a bevy of info out there on the web for using this technique and trust me,  I intend to take advantage of it.  I think with a little practice and maybe using multiple layers this could be a pretty cool tool.

What do you think?  If you've got experience or tips to share please leave a comment.  I'd love to hear from you.

A Tad Bit of Editing

In my last blog entry (July 26), I showed 6 examples of the same shot taken using different camera modes.  I don't normally do much with black & white and maybe that's why my eye was drawn to one of those over the color shots.  At any rate this is the one I gravitated towards and threw into PS Elements.

I really didn't do all that much.  First the basics - adjusted "levels" and "brightness".  Then went to the "Filter Gallery" and applied a a small amount of the "Paint Daubs" and the very minimum of the "Poster Edges" filters. Since it's hard to see what the filters really accomplish, I'll include a couple of close-ups for comparison.

Above is the original.  It would've been fine with just a levels adjustment, but since I like to play, I continued on.  I liked the combination of the 2 filters which resulted in a crisper, more defined image (below).

On a side note, I shot this as experimentation.  I'd normally never shoot using the camera's black & white mode.  My theory being that I can always take a color shot and later convert it to b&w, but I'd have a dickens of a time trying to do that in reverse!