Another Orton

[Cheryl Slechta]

This image was taken at Monterosso al Mare - one of the villages of the Cinque Terre. I did an orton and then reduced the saturation a little because when you use multiply blend mode with ortons I think sometimes the images are too saturated. Of course, sometimes it looks fine but not for this image.
Thanks for looking

[Jackie Schuknecht]

The scene is very pretty Cheryl, it looks bucolic! I like your composition and the receding hills. My eye seems to follow an S curve through the image taking it all in. I wonder if you can bring back more just a little more detail in the brightest clouds.

[Wendy Kates]

This is beautiful, Cheryl. I'm still not sure what an Orton effect is, but I like the effect on this scene. I love Cinque Terre! Looking forward to more of your images from there.

[Nancy Bell]

Very nice drama of the dark clouds and distant mountains contrasting with the bright boats and water in the foreground. The Orton effect gives the feeling that weather is moving in. I almost feel the sun on my back and expect to soon feel the moisture of the incoming weather!

[Cheryl Slechta]

Hi, Wendy, Michael Orton has(had) a technique which Freeman Patterson has done so well with film and calls montages. If you're using digital you (or at least this is usually the way I do mine) take your base image and duplicate it. Then on the first one you'll increase the exposure dramatically (1-1 1/2 stops usually). On the second one you'll also increase the exposure (usually 1 stop) and then apply a Gaussian Blur to the image to a varying degree. Some of mine have a lot of G blur, some don't - and the two I've posted don't. Then you copy and paste the blurred image on top of the other image and change the blend mode to Multiply. A lot of times you'll get super saturated colors and so I'll do a Hue and Saturation adjustment to tone it down a bit. You can do it in-camera if you have a camera that does multiple exposures but I've never been as happy with the results. (When you're increasing the exposure sometimes you'll have to brush back in some of the base image if you've lost all of your detail). Let me know if you have any questions. *Disclaimer - this is the way I do them. There may be people who do it differently

This is beautiful, Cheryl. I'm still not sure what an Orton effect is, but I like the effect on this scene. I love Cinque Terre! Looking forward to more of your images from there.

[gary ellwein]

Cheryl, I agree with the comments above. I particularly like the composition with the elements leading one through the image. The image lends itself to the Orton effect.

[Mitch Carucci]

Lovely scene. I can almost feel the breeze!