The Bleach Bypass Look

The bleach bypass look is a high contrast, often under saturated looked used in more dramatic films such as Se7en and Saving Private Ryan. This technique was originally performed on the film stock itself, but can now be inexpensively replicated with digital editing software.

Step 1) The first thing to do is select the clip in your timeline which you want to alter and apply a 3-way colour correction filter to it. This is done through Effects -> Video Filters -> Color Correction -> Color Corrector 3-way.

Step 2) The next thing to do is duplicate the selected clip and so the same clip is appears in track 1 and track 2 (both with the color corrector filter)

Step 3) Next, double click on the clip in track 2 so it appears in the viewer, then click on the Colour Correction tab in the viewer.

Step 4) From here, you want to bring the saturation down completely which will make the clip appear black and white. To fix this, right click on the clip in track 2, select Composite Mode -> Overlay. This will bring the colour back into the image with much more contrast

Step 5) Now double click on the clip in track 1 to get it into the viewer, which should already be in the Color Correction tab, and slightly lower the saturation. The amount you want to lower it really depends on preference.

Step 6) While still in the Color Corrections tab, you want to raise both the Blacks and the Whites slightly, again based on preference, to achieve the final look

Note: You can change the clip in track 2 from Overlay to Soft Light it will lessen the contrast, which may be done for preference or because the contrast may be too extreme on Overlay.

And that’s all you need to do to achieve the Bleach Bypass look in Final Cut.