In this easy Photoshop tutorial I will show you how to create dramatic portrait effects in Photoshop and Camera Raw/Lightroom. We will use the HDR filter and other filters as well as adjustment layers to create dramatic photo effects that will give a great impact on your photos and make your photoshop edits look more professional.

This tutorial is compatible with all Photoshop CS versions as well as with Photoshop CC and Lightroom 3 o above.

This editing technique is also known as the Bleach Bypass effect and it comes from the film developing process where you skip one of the chemical baths and you get a black and white image overlaid on a colored image which give more contrast and desaturates the final image.

In order to create the bleach bypass effect in Photoshop and get dramatic portrait effects we have many alternative ways, plugins and filters and in this tutorial I will show you three methods of creating cinematic effects on your images:

Using a Photoshop filter
With Camera RAW/Lightroom
With selective adjustments and blend modes

Making the right adjustments and the right blend modes on Photoshop we can create stunning portrait effects, but this technique can also be used to create any sort of dramatic effects on any image. It’s an effect that is very used in photography because it creates high impact images, so if you’re a photographer and want to make your images pop, you can try this technique.