What is the Bleach Bypass effect and how does it work in Nik Color Efex?

The bleach bypass process is an old analog darkroom technique that produced characteristically punchy images with high contrast, high definition and reduced saturation. You can reproduce this effect digitally in many different programs. Here, I’m using the Bleach Bypass filter in Nik Color Efex, which is one of the easiest and best implementations of this particular look.

Here’s the before and after comparison. The bleach bypass effect works particularly well on man made objects and gritty, urban environments, but it can also be used for male portraiture and other subjects where you want to create a strong, hard look.

How Nik Color Efex Filters work

Nik Color Efex offers both Presets and Filters in its left sidebar, and here’s the difference. Presets are pre-packaged combinations of different filter effects combined, while Filters are the basic building blocks. You can use Filters individually, and that’s what I’m doing here with the Bleach Bypass filter.

Now alongside each Filter in the list, you’ll see a small disclosure arrow. If you click on this you’ll see a selection of pre-configured settings for that filter and how they will look on your image. This is a really quick way to get started. You just click on the thumbnail you like and the filter is added to the filter stack over in the right sidebar so that you can check and adjust the settings.

Incidentally, when you move the mouse over the Filter you want in the left sidebar you will see a ‘+’ button appear. When you click on this, the Filter is added to the filter stack in the right sidebar, in addition to any others you’ve already added. If you don’t click the ‘+’ button, the Filter will replace whatever Filter is currently active in the right sidebar. Just remember – click to replace, click ‘+’ to add.

The Bleach Bypass Filter settings

These are really straightforward, and you may not need to adjust all of them or even any of them:

• Brightness: use this to adjust the overall brightness of the photo
• Saturation: use this to control the strength of the color, though keep in mind that the bleach bypass effect does typically have reduced saturation
• Contrast: this works how you would expect, increasing the overall contrast of the photo
• Local contrast: this is a little different. Part of the bleach bypass look is the exaggeration of object outlines, and this slider makes this effect more or less prominent
• Shadows: The bleach bypass effect can leave shadow areas rather dense and black and this can help restore some detail – though its effect can be pretty subtle, so don’t expect too much
• Highlights: likewise, this slider can restore over-bright or ‘blown’ highlight areas, but will only have a limited effect with this filter
• Opacity: you may have got the settings just how you like them but still feel the overall effect is a bit strong. With this slider you can reduce the overall strength of the effect (it’s probably more useful if you’re using multiple Filters in combination)

The Bleach Bypass Filter in Nik Color Efex does deliver a strong and dramatic look, especially for urban scenes. It’s just one of more than 50 Filters in Nik Color Efex, and I’ll be taking a closer look at more of these in future articles. In the meantime, if you like this effect and you want to see more, why not download the DxO Nik Collection trial?

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