Last week, I posted about a computer meltdown and a reinstall of software including trying to find the GIMP plugins I was using. After finding them and another cool suite of plugins, a twitter mate of mine @alastair_hm commented that he like the Orton Effect plugin. This plugin is located in the Gimphelp.org suite and is found under Script-Fu -> Sharpness -> Softer -> Orton Effect. I had not used this effect so I quickly applied it to an image. I instantly saw the potential for this effect.
I since discovered that the effect was named for MIchael Orton. He sandwiched slides together. For each image, he would take two shots. One overexposed by two stops and one that was overexposed by one stop. This would produce an image that had an impressionistic sense to it. Nowadays, we don’t really need to use a tripod and take multiple shots. Most image editing programs have settings, plugins, addons and etc that could produce this same effect or it an be produced by adding layers onto an existing image.
In GIMP, the Orton Effect copies the image on two additional layers. In the first it overexposes the image and sharpens it, in the second it applies a gaussian blur.
In this photo I used the Orton Effect then added an alpha mask to the blurred layer to fade out the effect in the center of the flower allowing the sharpness to show through.
This image shows the Orton Effect without using an alpha mask.
If you have a favorite GIMP plugin or effect, please let us all know!
