The soft glow or Orton effect has been a popular one for landscape photographers for years. But it was always a pain to add. You needed layers, filters, or panels and even then it wasn’t very good and didn’t have many customizing options. Well, Adobe added a new Glow effect to Camera Raw in version 18.6 (August 2026). It’s got some really solid features and ways to adjust it and we’ll take a look in this week’s video.
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I love teaching and photography... In that order. I feel that enjoying photography, and photo editing can get WAY too complicated. So my personal mission (and favorite thing to do), is to create education that simplifies the process of taking great photos, and how to edit them to get the results you’ve always wanted.
Awesome, cant wit to try on some of my images! Mahalo!
Why do they do that? Put features in ACR and not in LR or LRC? So annoying. Also, Luminar has had an Orton Effect filter for years. So I just take my image from PS to Luminar as a plugin and add it there (as a Smart Filter) .
Hi. I’m not sure the features Luminar has, has anything to do with it right? I created this for Adobe users. In Luminar, you’d need to first purchase another program that is mostly redundant to Adobe. Then make a copy of your photo, which is no longer raw, and 10x the file size. To me, that’s a step backward not ahead in photo editing. But if it works for you that’s all that counts. Thanks!
Great to see what’s possible. Not sure if it suits my style of photography, but you never know when it might just be the thing you need!
Thank you, Matt! Your presentation is helpful, and I will try it on my photo.
This was EXCELLENT Matt! Thanks for walking us through the new Glow tool -that’s going to be SUPER useful. Like you, I’ll be heading back to some older images to re-edit and experiment creatively. Hope it makes it over to LR Classic soon but not a big deal to hop over to Camera Raw, as you say!
Always appreciative of your expertise and making your knowledge available in courses and tutorials!
As always, a clear, precise presentation that displays how to use the Orton Effect without complicating the process. Thank you again Matt.
very very interesting Matt!
I think I’ll try out this effect for my food and drink photos; I also think it could work well on small subjects—even on some portraits!
Thank you
Course on camera raw and bridge for Lightroom and Lightroom classic would be great
A course on Bridge and Camera Raw for LR users would be spectacular.
How do you make your photo look like a painting and not just a simple photo that every camera makes. I love this soft glow and can’t wait to its on LR.
Matt: Glow looks like an interesting new tool, thanks for the video. I think a lot of people would be. interested in a course on Bridge and Camera Raw for LR users. Hope you consider developing one.
Why the audio language in spanish is not available n YouTube? And I checked that all Spanish languages were marked
Hi. I’m not able to answer that. Contacting google/youtube would be the only way to troubleshoot. Thanks.
Very helpul!
One thing that you showed multiple times but didn’t explain in words is that the glow effect operates with the entire image as input, and then using a mask controls where it is applied to the output. So, for example, in one image the glow is developed based on the sky light, but then the mask limits the application to the upper edge of the mountains and prevents it from being applied to the sky itself and other places where you don’t want it.
Thanks, I get the feeling a number of the recent feature that are in CR will appearin LRC in October at the usual major update from Adobe. Will you be exspading on of these updtes in the Photoshop Summitt in September?
Hi. The only update is the glow effect, and it’s not something I could expand on any more than I did here. Thanks.