Bungalow 104

Digital Slide Sandwich
Doorways in Florence

original photograph

Original Image

modified image

Modified Image

 

Inspiration for this treatment came from a September 1994 article in Popular Photography describing Michael Orton's in-camera technique for creating impressionist scenics by combining in-focus and soft-focus photographs in a slide sandwich.

Using that article as a reference point, combined with an article on Gaussian Blur Overlays, I developed the following “recipe” for processing the doorways:

  1. Duplicate the background layer and overexpose “two stops” using an Expose Filter. The amount is a guesstimate based on the range of the filter.
  2. Repeat on a second copy of the background layer, adding a Gaussian blur of 8 pixels; blending mode multiply; 100% opacity.
  3. To bring out some texture, create a merged copy of the previous two layers and apply the filter texture>grain, intensity 30, contrast 50, grain type regular.
  4. In this image, details such as the house number and ribbon were further enhanced individually.
  5. The final Layers Palette, and the resulting image.
    layers palette

As noted in Reichmann's article on Gaussian Blur Overlays, such recipes are only a starting point: “season to taste.”