Quick And Dirty Bleach Bypass Effect

Bleach Bypass is an effect used in cinematography that produces a high contrast, low color saturation end result. “Saving Private Ryan”, “300″, and “Minority Report” were post processed with the bleach bypass effect. The process by which this effect is achieved in the lab is simple, the bleach phase of developing is bypassed. (There have been some proprietary versions of the process engineered to control the severity of the result). This phase of developing literally removes the silver content of the film and when it is skipped, we simply leave the silver intact. There are many ways to produce this effect digitally from complex manual Photoshop work to quick and easy filters that create variances in the effect. Color Efex Pro 3.0 from Nik Software is one option that includes other filters as well.

Our victim for today’s tutorial is an image of the Erie Canal in Waterford, NY awaiting its re-open for springtime. (Notice the area between the locks is nearly empty.)

Our purpose here today is to illustrate the quickest, easiest, and cheapest way to produce this effect in Photoshop.

Step 1
Open your image.

Step 2.
Duplicate the layer. If you are a keyboard shortcut kind of user you can use Option + Command + J on a Mac or Ctrl + Alt + J on a PC. You may also go to the Layer menu and select Duplicate Layer. Name this layer Black and White.

Step 3.
Under the Layers menu, select New Adjustment Layer, Black and white. Make sure you check Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask in the dialog box.

Name the Adjustment Layer Bleach Bypass Effect. Note: You are welcome to adjust the Black and White layer however you want, we are just going to leave it for the sake of simplicity in the tutorial.

Step 4.
Select Overlay from the blending mode drop down menu in the layer palette.

Step 5.
Change the opacity of the adjustment layer to vary the intensity of the effect.

The finished product.

The original.

Some Other examples.
The original image is on the left.

Images © James H. Pickett
Do not use without permission

Happy Editing!

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