Tutorial (not quite): Bleach Bypass Look

I first became aware of bleach bypassing (or skip bleach) when discussing movies -- or rather, the look of certain movies. Specifically Saving Private Ryan: that gritty, dirty, desaturated yet contrasty look. According to Wikipedia, a bleach bypass is:

...an optical effect which entails either the partial or complete skipping of the bleaching function during the processing of a color film. By doing this, the silver is retained in the emulsion along with the color dyes. The result is a black and white image over a color image. The images usually would have reduced saturation and latitude, along with increased contrast and graininess.

I've tried to come up with a way to simulate the look in photoshop. This is my "quick and dirty" skip bleach effect. (One caveat: I do not take notes, so everything here is from memory and not an exact science. Proceed at your own risk.)

Start with a good image. I actually prefer one that's slightly overexposed, as it's easier to add color than subtract it:



Create a black gradient and blend using the overlay mode. You might want to adjust the opacity a bit. Flatten image. Now duplicate that layer and add a high pass filter with a radius of about 4. Blend using the color mode until the image has just enough color. This also adds a bit of sharpening. If the contrast seems a bit week, adjust the curves (or levels) until there's enough black in the shadows and the highlights blow out a bit:



I sometimes warm it up a bit, as the end results tends to lean a little "cool," but you might find it to your liking.