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Bleach Bypass Video Effect

Continue editing Open in workflow
Often followed by + Contrast + Sharpen

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Settings are written to the URL as you change them. Nothing differs from the defaults yet.

Grade a clip with the silver-heavy look of bleach bypass, the lab process behind the hard, desaturated look of many war films and thrillers.

Strength and silver

Bypass Strength sets how much of the silver layer is laid over the color. Silver Density sets the contrast within that layer. Together they decide how metallic the frame looks.

Color and contrast

Color Retention brings back channel separation after the blend; lower values move toward monochrome. Contrast sets the final tonal spread. Skin tones go pale and cool at strong settings, which suits war, crime, and action footage more than portraits.

Frequently Asked Questions

A lab process in which the bleach step is skipped or shortened, leaving metallic silver in the film next to the color dyes. The result stacks a black-and-white image over the color one: lower saturation and higher contrast.

Desaturation only removes color. Bleach bypass also raises contrast exactly where color falls, which gives the hard, metallic look.

Yes. The same curve is applied to every frame and does not measure the picture, so it holds like a lab process across a sequence.

It is copied into the export unchanged when the container can hold its codec, and re-encoded when it cannot. A note under the export button says which happened.

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