The Orton effect without Photoshop

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

The Orton effect is quite well known. Named after photographer Orton, it is a way to give a photo a dreamy atmosphere. The effect works particularly well with highlights. You can also achieve this with double exposures.

The Orton effect is an edit applied to a photo, usually in Photoshop or Lightroom. Or in similar software, because Adobe is not the only option. Whichever software you use, the effect creates a dreamy atmosphere.

You can also create this effect while taking the photo. The condition is that your camera supports multiple exposures. If that option is not available, you are limited to the software mentioned earlier.

Multiple exposure simply means that the camera lays two or more photos over each other. Ideally, the end result is a raw file. Unfortunately, most cameras produce a jpeg file. Bear that in mind.

How it works is simple. After activating multiple exposures, sometimes called double exposure, and setting it to two shots, you can get started. First, you take a sharp photo of your subject. Then you take the image out of focus and take the second photo.

Taking the image out of focus means that you need to use manual focus for the second photo. You can choose the amount of blur, which determines the strength of the effect. You can also adjust the exposure, with one stop of overexposure creating a stronger effect. Experiment with the options.

All the photos in this article were made using this method. You do need to decide in the field whether to use this Orton effect. The advantage over creating this effect digitally afterwards is that you think more consciously about the end result while taking photos.

Would you consider using double exposures in this way, or would you leave it as a digital effect applied afterwards? Let us know in a comment below this post.

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