The origin of uniaxial and hydrostatic pressure effects on $T_c$ in the single-layered cuprate superconductors is theoretically explored. A two-orbital model, derived from first principles and analyzed with the fluctuation exchange approximation gives axial-dependent pressure coefficients, $partial T_c/partial P_a>0$, $partial T_c/partial P_c<0$, with a hydrostatic response $partial T_c/partial P>0$ for both La214 and Hg1201 cuprates, in qualitative agreement with experiments. Physically, this is shown to come from a unified picture in which higher $T_c$ is achieved with an orbital distillation, namely, the less the $d_{x^2-y^2}$ main band is hybridized with the $d_{z^2}$ and $4s$ orbitals higher the $T_c$. Some implications for obtaining higher $T_c$ materials are discussed.