Orton

There are lots of post-processing techniques that can be applied to enhance the photos you took. I have seen a lot of these in Flickr’s daily upload. Was I tempted to try any of those? Not really. But everything changed after seeing this. It is called Orton technique, named after Michael Orton.

The Orton image has traditionally been done using slide film with the first, sharp, image overexposed by two stops and the second, out of focus image, over exposed by one stop. It is important to use a tripod for this type of work to ensure your photographic elements remain in register on the film. The shots were then sandwiched together in single slide mount to produce a beautiful, impressionistic image. We are beyond that now and with so many things in the world of digital photography, we can now duplicate the same effect in multiple ways.

There’s something about the resulting photo that got my attention. It seems unreal, poetic, ethereal, and dreamy. It’s like a peek to another dimension. I searched the guidelines on how to achieve this quality and religiously followed each step. However, I realized that not all photos look good with Orton. I am addicted to this kind of editing and I really enjoy each resulting pictures.

Here are some of my ortonized photos.

And by the way, if you are interested to try to this, here is the step-by-step procedure on how to do it. And a video tutorial for a 3-layer Orton. It’s quite easy.

/totomai
06/04/03