Orton Effect and B&W

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Trout Guy
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p.1 #1 · Orton Effect and B&W

A little help please. I'm doing a photographic study of the historic churches of our county in north central Arkansas. We have many restored and well maintained old country churches that date from just after the Civil War. This is to be a fund raising opportunity for us as photographers/custom framers along with our local county historical society and cemetery association.

I've been trying out the Orton Effect on color images and like what I see. The church images will be printed and sold as B&Ws. I know I can do the PP myself and learn quite a lot but I'd like a bit of help and the question is: Should I convert to B&W then apply Orton or apply Orton to the color image then convert to B&W? What would be the differences if you know? I can experiment all I want and eventually I will figure it out but if any of you have already been there, done that, your experiences would be most helpful and greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

TG

Feb 13, 2008 at 12:47 AM

tomrock
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p.1 #2 · Orton Effect and B&W

What's the Orton Effect?

Feb 13, 2008 at 10:50 AM

Tim Gray
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p.1 #3 · Orton Effect and B&W

Not sure if it makes any difference, but my practice is to Ortonize at the end of the process, just before resizing and sharpening to final print size.

Feb 13, 2008 at 03:09 PM

picnic
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p.1 #4 · Orton Effect and B&W

tomrock wrote:
What's the Orton Effect?

Tom, I've never tried it but have seen it on retouching forums. Here's an explanation with photos.
http://www.tutiki.org/w/index.php/The_Orton_Technique
Diane

Feb 13, 2008 at 03:33 PM

claudermilk
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p.1 #5 · Orton Effect and B&W

I've only started experimenting with it myself, and only in color. All the examples I've ever seen have also been in color. Why not try it yourself?

Feb 13, 2008 at 04:55 PM

paulhodson
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p.1 #6 · Orton Effect and B&W

picnic wrote:
tomrock wrote:
What's the Orton Effect?

Tom, I've never tried it but have seen it on retouching forums. Here's an explanation with photos.
http://www.tutiki.org/w/index.php/The_Orton_Technique
Diane

The explanation in the tutorial is over complex.

Image->Duplicate.
In the dialogue box set blending mode to screen and opacity to 100%
Control J to duplicate
Apply Gaussian blur to taste (say 5-25 pixels)
Change blend mode in the layers palette to "multiply"

Hope this helps.

I have written a quick Photoshop action to automate most of it - you need to set the level of blur to suit your image/taste

Action

Feb 13, 2008 at 05:27 PM

Trout Guy
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p.1 #7 · Orton Effect and B&W

This is the tutorial I've been going by for Orton http://pcin.net/update/2006/11/01/the-orton-effect-digital-photography-tip-of-the-week/

It seems to work nicely for me in color. My question still remains if I want the final output to be B&W should I convert before or after Orton? Hopefully tomorrow I'll have some time to play around and determine for myself; just though some of you out there might have some hints if you had gone through this before.

Thanks,

TG

Feb 14, 2008 at 12:19 AM

cencored
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p.1 #8 · Orton Effect and B&W

Yes I would just try it out myself, convert to BW and see how it looks. Should only take a few minutes.
Not meaning to hijack the thread, but I can not find the PS actions folder on the mac.
Can anybody point to it please?

Feb 14, 2008 at 04:42 AM

paulhodson
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p.1 #9 · Orton Effect and B&W

Don't use a Mac - but if you search for .atn files you should be able to locate it. However, you can store actions anywhere - once they have been loaded into Photoshop they can even be deleted (although you would have to be pretty daft to do so as if you lose the Photoshop file they are recorded in you would be up a creek without a paddle

)

Feb 14, 2008 at 06:56 AM

tomrock
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p.1 #10 · Orton Effect and B&W

cencored wrote:
Not meaning to hijack the thread, but I can not find the PS actions folder on the mac.
Can anybody point to it please?

For CS3 it's in Applications > Photoshop > Presets > Actions

Feb 14, 2008 at 12:49 PM

tomrock
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p.1 #11 · Orton Effect and B&W

Thanks for the explanations of what this is. I've heard the term used before but never knew what it was.

Feb 14, 2008 at 12:51 PM

tomhh
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p.1 #12 · Orton Effect and B&W

This is a cool action.

PS: I know about the right lower shadow

Edited on Feb 14, 2008 at 11:13 PM

Feb 14, 2008 at 11:12 PM

cencored
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p.1 #13 · Orton Effect and B&W

It is an action though that I would rarely use, as it looks highly processed.
Generally it has been around since PS single digits

Feb 15, 2008 at 04:40 AM

claudermilk
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p.1 #14 · Orton Effect and B&W

The concept I think has been around longer than PS--it was originally used for slide film. I do agree that it's a technique to use sparingly; with the right image or use it can be really cool. Overused & it becomes cliche quickly.

Feb 15, 2008 at 04:59 PM

christo™
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p.1 #15 · Orton Effect and B&W

Just played around with that a bit -- I've used that effect for some years, got it from some book, and never new before it was called the "Orton effect."

Surely whatever you do first is what you feel gives the best results, but at least when using the Calculations approach to convert to B&W, it's clearly better in the test cases I ran to add the layer and blur after performing the B&W conversion. So, I guess it depends on which method you are using for the B&W conversion.

Feb 15, 2008 at 11:16 PM

Jammy Straub
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p.1 #16 · Orton Effect and B&W

I've never seen any difference in doing before or after B&W conversion. I normally make the decision to go B&W with an image early in the workflow so by the time I'm ready to do an ortonizing it's already in it's final form.

I also find "multiply' isn't always the appropriate layer mode. I often use soft light, overlay, or screen. But then again I don't like the heavy handed look, I prefer it more subtle.

I actually use effect a lot in very subtle ways to increase saturation and local contrast while giving the images subtle glow. I shall call it "Jammy-ness"

Examples:

Edited on Feb 16, 2008 at 06:32 AM

Feb 16, 2008 at 06:31 AM

christo™
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p.1 #17 · Orton Effect and B&W

Jammy, no offense intended, but those images are all blown-to-light like hell, and try again, dude. I readily admit I never heard of "Orton", just learned someone did the same, but you're trailin' dude, the original topic is churches, and these images simply don't apply. Try cranking up your whitepoint BTW.

Feb 16, 2008 at 09:32 AM

Jammy Straub
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p.1 #18 · Orton Effect and B&W

christo™ wrote:
Jammy, no offense intended, but those images are all blown-to-light like hell, and try again, dude. I readily admit I never heard of "Orton", just learned someone did the same, but you're trailin' dude, the original topic is churches, and these images simply don't apply. Try cranking up your whitepoint BTW.

I intended for the images to be "hot". There's nothing blown that I didn't mean to blow. They print well and appear to my taste on my calibrated display. Ortonizing a photo does strange things to their highlights.

I'm not a fan of how most web browsers render the father and daughter dancing photo, it's not really that warm.

I unfortunately don't have any photos of ortonized churches to share and thought I'd give a different perspective on the technique.

Edited on Feb 16, 2008 at 04:19 PM

Feb 16, 2008 at 03:24 PM


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