Orton/Glow Landscape Photoshop Effect

The Orton effect is made from two different shots, one that is perfectly sharp and focused and another one blurred and out of focus. When those two pictures are combined in the darkroom you've got an ethereal kind of glowing effect.

With this Orton Photoshop action you can give any image (at any size and resolution) a glowing effect just like the real Orton process. The action set includes 4 different ready-made sizes of Orton effects (Small, Medium, Large and Extra Large) and also a 'Custom' action so you can manually set the desired amount of glow for the image you are working on.

How to install (action):

  1. Open Photoshop.
  2. In the Actions Panel click on the top right icon and from the dropdown menu select "Load Actions".
  3. Locate the "Medialoot - Orton Effect.atn" file and click on Load.

How to use:

  1. Open your image. Be sure that is set as the background (if not, go to Layer > New > Background from Layer).
  2. In the Actions Panel, expand the "Medialoot - Orton Effect" action container.
  3. Select any of the included actions and click on the play button.
  4. If you run the "Custom Glow" action, when prompted, click the "Continue" button in the message window, set the desired amount of glow for your image and click OK.

Tips

  1. Increase or decrease the glowing effect by increasing or decreasing the opacity of the "Orton Base Effect" layer.
  2. Expand the "Adjustments" layer group and turn on or off the different "Details" layers to increase or decrease the image details.