First I am going to assume that there is no 3rd party program in use here. I have both NIK and Tiffen plug-ins, and they both offer a bleaching process that can generate a similar look.
Second, PS is no cure for bad lighting. The previous post, though not entirely helpful, was truthful.
It is kind of hard to see what was done without seeing what it looked like before. That being said, let me offer this suggestion. Take a look at the shot, and try to see what gives it it's "look". Three things I notice, fairly high contrast, desaturated colors, and a crisp sharpness. You will get in the same neighborhood if you duplicate the layer, desaturate it, and set the blend mode to one of the Contrast blends, then separately add a High Pass layer for sharpness.
I grabbed a shot that I took in the artist district near Sacre Couer in Paris. Lighting was overcast and flat, so I am starting with a fairly low contrast shot.
I ended up creating three additional layers. Top layer was desaturated, blend mode set to "Screen" and 50% opacity. Next layer was also desaturated, and also set at 50% opacity, but instead this was set with a blend mode of "Soft Light" The next layer also desaturated, then treated with a High Pass filter (amount would depend on the size of the original image. Blend mode to "Hard Light" and this one was 100% opacity.
Below is the before and after. Granted it may not be exactly like the example you posted (probably a function of the difference in lighting in the respective source shots), but this does get near it, and gives you a direction for experimentation.
Rad
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