Photoshop CS5 Tutorial - Bleach Bypass Effect

Bleach Bypass is also called Skip Bleach or Silver Retention and refers to the partial or full bypassing of the bleaching part in the processing of colour film. This process retains the silver in the emulsion as well as the colour dyes. This results in a Black and White photo overlaid overa colour photo. The effect is to reduce Saturation and narrow the exposure as well as increase contrast and noise or graininess. The technique was invented by Japanese cameraman Kazuo Miyagawa whilst making the 1960 Kon Ichikawa film "Her Brother". The most famous example of its use is in the Stephen Spielberg film, Saving Private Ryan.

To do the Bleach Bypass Effect in Photoshop CS5, Right Click on the image layer and select Duplicate Layer. You can rename this layer to what you like. Then select Overlay as the blend mode and click on "Create New Fill or Adjustment Layer" from the options icons at the bottom of the Layers Dialog Box and choose Hue/Saturation. Set the Saturation to around about minus sixty.

Select the Background Copy layer and Click on Menu Item Image - AdJustments - Curves. Make three dots above the line and use them to adjust the contrast. Take the shadows down and the highlights up. You should get an S-curve. This Bleach Bypass Effect gives you very high contrast and low saturation.

Another method of getting the Bleach Bypass Effect is to use a HDR Toning Adjustments Layer. Select menu item Image - Adjustments - HDR Toning. Use Local Adaptation Method , radius of 120 and strength is 2.0. Set the Gamma to 140, raise the Exposure to 0.10 and use a setting of 100 for Detail. Set the Shadows to -100 and increase the highlights to blow them out. Lower Vibrance and Saturation to wash out the photo.

Next create a new Black and White Adjustments Layer. Then set that layer's Blending Mode to Multiply to darken the photo. Then lower the Opacity of that layer to about 50% or whatever looks good to you.