I have heard of a photographic effect known as the 'Orton
Effect'. Can anyone tell me what the effect is, what its history
is and how I would create it in both film and on my digital SLR?
The Orton Effect is an image-processing technique resulting in a
high-contrast look with a slightly "glowing" appearance. It
started as an analogue technique made from two slide exposures
of the same scene - one sharp and one soft - but nowadays it's
more commonly done digitally. This photo on Flickr is an example
of the result: A basic recipe for doing this in Photoshop (or
similar image-editing software) is as follows: According to
Michael Orton, the originator of the method, he used this to
imitate watercolor paintings when using slide film. It involves
overlaying of a sharp, overexposed image with an out-of-focus
version of the same image. This can be done in Photoshop or
similar by mixing image and a blurred version of it. Playing
with the transparency levels gives you control over the outcome.
My understanding is that