bleach bypass effect
SourceEffect01/ ORIGIN
Colour film development normally bleaches out the silver once the dye image has formed. Skip that step, or shorten it, and the silver stays, so a monochrome image sits on top of the colour one: contrast climbs, saturation drops, and shadows go dense. Laboratories offered it as skip-bleach or ENR, and it moved from an occasional request to a recognisable language after Saving Private Ryan used it throughout in 1998.
02/ SWEEP
DESAT sweep
03/ SPEC
This effect raises contrast while desaturating, imitating a retained silver image sitting over the colour one. DESAT runs from 0 to 7 with a default of 1 and controls how much colour is drained, which is the main axis of the look: low values keep a colour photograph with extra bite, and high values approach monochrome with residual tint. CONTRAST from 0 to 3 steepens the curve, and PIVOT is an advanced control setting where that steepening hinges. In kott it renders in natural colour, since the effect is defined by what happens to colour rather than to tone alone.
04/ FAQ
- What is bleach bypass?
- Bleach bypass is a film process where the bleach step is skipped, so silver stays in the emulsion alongside the dye image. The result is high contrast, low saturation and dense shadows.
- What DESAT value looks most like the film process?
- Around the default of 1 to 2. The real process leaves a colour image visible under the silver, so complete desaturation overshoots into plain monochrome.
- Why does bleach bypass raise contrast?
- A retained silver image is a full monochrome negative sitting on top of the colour one, and stacking the two densities steepens the tonal curve, particularly in the shadows.
