Abandoned Farmhouse (HDR+Orton) - 1st post!

[Roland303]

Hello all, I'm new to this place but I've been going through these forums looking at everyone's great photos. I thought I'd post one of my first HDR photos with the Orton technique applied as well. The HDR was done using Photomatix and the Orton plus other editing was done in CS2. Any C&C is welcome.

[kenwae]

Seems a little fuzzy; but great composition and coloration...

[OddsHawaii]

Very Nice!

[Numpty]

Agree with kenwae on the slight fuzziness otherwise a nice job.

[Normpixel]

Nice work!, Roland303. I am NO stranger to "fuzzy" photos AND I can attest to the fact that there are farms and farmhouses (abandoned AND NOT abandoned!) that are "FUZZY" as well... BTW, "what" or "who" is Orton? (and the Orton effect or technique?). I have used it myself (Dynamic-PHOTO HDR by MediaChance) but, as of now, don't know the "origin of Orton"... all I know is that it is "interesting" and "fuzzy" (usually). ...Normpixel... ...the image is of our "Orton'd" '74 Chevelle Laguna Type S-3...

[Worm324]

This is really nice all around. I believe the fuzziness is from the processing you did and I really like the effect. It's almost like a midnight Sepia glow or something.

Thanks for sharing,
Jay

[Roland303]

Originally Posted by Normpixel

Nice work!, Roland303. I am NO stranger to "fuzzy" photos AND I can attest to the fact that there are farms and farmhouses (abandoned AND NOT abandoned!) that are "FUZZY" as well... BTW, "what" or "who" is Orton? (and the Orton effect or technique?). I have used it myself (Dynamic-PHOTO HDR by MediaChance) but, as of now, don't know the "origin of Orton"... all I know is that it is "interesting" and "fuzzy" (usually). ...Normpixel... ...the image is of our "Orton'd" '74 Chevelle Laguna Type S-3...

Thanks for the compliments! Everybody is correct.. it is "fuzzy" but because of the blending technique. I really like using this for old buildings and cars and certain landscapes as well. I'm not sure WHO Orton is but I like what they came up with! I know that it started out with "sandwiching" two 35mm slides together: one overexposed and in focus and the other overexposed and blurred, out of focus. Combining them together into a single slide would give this painting like quality to the photo. Now it is done in Photoshop or any other image editing program.

[ront]

I really like your picture Roland303! This effect is something I need to learn.

Ron

[Roland303]

Originally Posted by Worm324

This is really nice all around. I believe the fuzziness is from the processing you did and I really like the effect. It's almost like a midnight Sepia glow or something.

Thanks for sharing,
Jay

That's correct, the fuzziness is from blending an out of focus duplicate image layer with an infocus layer (Orton image). I did also add a sepia-like colour adjustment layer in addition to using the burn/dodging tool to dark/lighten certain areas. Thanks for the comment

[Epphoto]

Very nice work here your colors and composition are excellent
I like the Orton technique but on my taste i want to see the house a litle sharper then the rest of the picture
Very nice

[PhotoGuy74]

Very well done... lurking in the forums does pay off LOL

[azrussell132]

Originally Posted by Roland303

Thanks for the compliments! Everybody is correct.. it is "fuzzy" but because of the blending technique. I really like using this for old buildings and cars and certain landscapes as well. I'm not sure WHO Orton is but I like what they came up with! I know that it started out with "sandwiching" two 35mm slides together: one overexposed and in focus and the other overexposed and blurred, out of focus. Combining them together into a single slide would give this painting like quality to the photo. Now it is done in Photoshop or any other image editing program.

Excellent shot Roland. The Orton effect works well on this one for my taste. And to add to your explanation of the Orton effect...the first shot is 2 stops overexposed and the second shot is 1 stop overexposed. Michael Orton sandwiched the two slides in a slide mount for an "impressionistic" effect.

[Roland303]

Originally Posted by Epphoto

Very nice work here your colors and composition are excellent
I like the Orton technique but on my taste i want to see the house a litle sharper then the rest of the picture
Very nice

Hey thanks! I've seen a lot of your work posted here, which I like. I'll have to agree that the house could be a little sharper, but that could also be due to the shrinking of the photo. The larger master file, the house is clearly sharper.

[Normpixel]

Thanks, Roland303, for "bringing me up to speed" concerning "the Orton effect/technique" (also thanks to azrussell132 for the additional info). In my "film days", I worked with the late Joe Antos who developed a "single machine" blending/dissolving image audio-visual projector. We saw many unusual effects during the transitions on-screen (the projector had micro controls for exact on-screen registration)... some were very similar to the Orton effect but were momentary. My how the "science" has changed... ...Normpixel... [image is of a "not quite abandoned" truck, pseudo-HDR'd and "2nd time around" tone mapped (!)... there is so much noise (I should call it the "gravel" truck!) but I like the COLORS.]

[Normpixel]

This truck "rolling" through the farmland was a bit too "sharp and shiny" to "Ortonize" (yet!). May try one of the "preset" Orton effects offered in Dynamic-PHOTO HDR by MediaChance... Normpixel

[Roland303]

Originally Posted by Normpixel

May try one of the "preset" Orton effects offered in Dynamic-PHOTO HDR by MediaChance... Normpixel

I'll have to check out this program by MediaChance. Is it similar to Photomatix? Personally, I haven't found any consistency on which photos work best for using Orton, so far it's just been trial and error. I haven't done too many Orton images and most of them were with slide film, but I've found that high contrast images didn't work as well as low key/high key or low contrast images, imo. I guess the best thing to do is just to try it out and see if it works. Hopefully, soon, I'll be able to look at a subject and say 'yes, that'll work nicely for Orton'.

[traderone]

Hi Roland303!

I really love this image. What I like about it is the "fuzziness". Perfect. Kind of a recovered memory type of shot.

Could you share how you blurred the "second image". I sometimes use guassian 16 or 32 before doing my blending. Any advice is appreciated and keep the good stuff coming!

[f-stop]

Very, very nice, Roland-

'tis very moody in a good way. This is one of those pictures that pulls me right into the scene, feel like I'm standing in Wonderland with Alice. Bet it's a knockout as a print, thanks for posting...

[Roland303]

Originally Posted by traderone

Hi Roland303!

I really love this image. What I like about it is the "fuzziness". Perfect. Kind of a recovered memory type of shot.

Could you share how you blurred the "second image". I sometimes use guassian 16 or 32 before doing my blending. Any advice is appreciated and keep the good stuff coming!

Hi Traderone,

Unfortunately I never write down or keep track of the steps I take which is too bad because I'll go back to a photo from time to time and wonder what it was that I did !..LOL. However, blurring of the second photo is usually trial and error and it depends on the size/resolution of the photo. I usually use a radius from 10-20 if using a full 10MP image. I like to try and keep the sharp detail from the underlying layer showing through as much as possible which can be done by "overexposing" the blurred layer more. It's difficult to tell in the photo above because of resizing, but yes, printed out it looks good.

[rjnear@rjnphoto.com]

wonderful image, orton effect gives it avery painterly look.
Robert