Chromatic aberration can cause photography headaches. You could have the perfect shot – the angle, exposure, and timing – absolutely spot on. But chromatic aberration could ruin that, edging objects with unsightly lines of colour. Sure, some photographers create it intentionally for an arty effect – but mostly, it’s something to avoid. Learn all about chromatic aberration in this comprehensive guide.
What you’ll learn:
What is chromatic aberration?
Chromatic aberration, also known as colour fringing, is a colour distortion that will leave visible imperfections on your photographs. Generally, it creates an outline of unwanted colour along the edges of objects in a photograph.
Often, chromatic aberration appears along metallic surfaces or where there is a high contrast between light and dark objects – such as a black wall in front of a bright blue sky. Each type of aberration causes different colours of outlines along an object’s edge.
It’s because it often occurs at the edge of an image and objects within it that it’s known as colour fringing.
“Looking back through old photos, I notice fringing and I am horrified that it’s been in there the entire time.”
Nick Mendez, photographer and filmmaker
Chromatic aberration relates to your camera and more specifically its lens and how it processes light. We’ll talk more about this in the next section. It’s also important to know there are two main types of chromatic aberration:
We’ll talk in greater detail about each of these later.
It can be difficult to tell what has caused imperfections in your photograph. But these are the key indicators of chromatic aberration:
Thankfully, there are many ways to counter both types of chromatic aberration – mostly by paying particular attention to certain camera settings, your photographic composition, and shooting conditions.
Chromatic aberration is all about how the camera lens handles light. The lens is one of the most important components in your camera. It draws light to a fixed focal point before sending it onto the camera sensor to make the image.
But this light can be hard to control. This is due to the refractive index (put more simply: the way light passes from one medium to another – i.e. through the glass of a camera lens). Various wavelengths of light travel through the lens at different speeds, making it difficult for some lenses to focus each hue on the same focal plane.
And this failure of a camera lens to focus white light’s different wavelengths onto the same focal point causes chromatic aberration – or to look at it visually, a blur of blue-yellow, red-green or magenta-purple fringing around the edge of objects in your photograph.
One of the main causes of chromatic aberration from a photographer’s point of view is failing to set the right camera settings or to make the right choices about where to shoot. For example, shooting high contrast scenes – such as a skyscraper silhouetted against a blue sky – is likely to create chromatic aberration.
Let’s now look at the two types of chromatic aberration, so you can easily recognise them next time you see imperfections in your shots. The type of chromatic aberration you’re dealing with depends on what’s happened when your camera lens has tried to process the light.
Also known as: Axial chromatic aberration
Longitudinal chromatic aberration, or Axial chromatic aberration, often occurs in images made with wide apertures (low f-stop numbers) and where long focal lengths have been used.
Coloured outlines (blue-yellow / red-green) around the edge of objects in the frame – even in the centre of a frame. For example, window frames on a photo of a house. You won’t solely see it on conventionally shaped objects like skyscrapers and billboards – it’s also present on the edges of irregular shapes, such as branches on trees and craggy mountain tops.
Your camera lens has failed to unite the various wavelengths of colour to the same focal plane.
Also known as: transverse chromatic aberration
Lateral chromatic aberration, or transverse chromatic aberration, is the blue-yellow or red-green fringing that occurs when different wavelengths of light focus at varying distances from the lens.
If the colour distortion is only present towards the edge of the photograph, you’ll know it’s lateral chromatic aberration. Look out for colour fringing with red, cyan, blue and yellow at the edges of your image. If it’s in the centre of the image, it’s longitudinal aberration.
Your camera lens has focused the different wavelengths of colour at different positions in the focal plane.
Colour distortion can leave you with photos that look ruined, but thankfully correcting chromatic aberration is relatively easy with the right image editing software and tools.
Digital photography has transformed and democratised post-production editing. In the days of analogue SLR cameras and traditional film, correcting chromatic aberration was a very different challenge to the relatively simple process it is today.
Removing chromatic aberration is a simple way to improve your image quality and eliminate an unrealistic edge of colour that some beginner photographers may not even notice. You can do it easily with photo-editing software such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.
Correcting chromatic aberration in Adobe Lightroom, without damaging the image quality, is easy. Open the cloud-based photo editor and load the images you want to amend.
This may do a satisfactory job of removing fringing. However, if the image requires further work, follow steps 4 to 7 as well:
Have I got the right software? Depending on the type of chromatic aberration, you may need Lightroom Classic, Lightroom 4.1 or later to correct it and the colour fringing.
To avoid chromatic aberration in your photography, there are some key steps to consider. Sure, it’s relatively easy to fix it in post-production with the right tools, but it’d be much simpler to avoid it in the first place.
“The best way to go about fixing it is to shoot it correctly in camera the first time.” Adam Rindy, photographer
The main tips are:
We’ll now go on to talk about each of these in more detail.
High-contrast scenes can lead to chromatic aberration. Try to avoid shooting subjects in front of a:
Where possible, reframe the photo or switch the backdrop to something more suited to the subject’s primary colours.
For example: when shooting in natural surroundings, you often have little control over the background. However, you can either wait until the natural light improves or prepare for touch-up work in Lightroom post-shoot.
Generally, chromatic aberration occurs around the edge of the frame due to the curvature of the lenses within the barrel. While it may go against the rule of thirds, reframing your shots with the subject in the centre can reduce or even eliminate these problems.
Consider different angles before you shoot and experiment with framing so you can compare the results. In some cases, you may still have to crop your images afterwards in Lightroom to get the frame you want.
Photographer and educator Adam Long recommends shooting at a higher f-stop — which narrows your aperture – to avoid colour distortion, especially when using a cheaper lens.
Try upping your ISO, using a flash or slowing your shutter speed when shooting at a narrower aperture to make up for the loss of light.
“If you shoot a low-gradient lens wide open, at a 1.8 aperture for example, your chances of seeing chromatic aberration go way up. But if you use a smaller aperture, like 5.6, you’re less likely to see it.” Adam Long, photographer
Wide-angle lenses with shorter focal lengths are more prone to colour fringing. For example, shooting at a medium focal length of around 30 millimetres when using an 18 to 55-millimetre lens should help.
“If you’re shooting at 18 millimetres, you’re way more likely to encounter chromatic aberration because you’re using the extremities of the glass.”
Adam Long, photographer
We’ve spent most of this article talking about chromatic aberration as a bad thing for photographers. But there are times you may want to create it intentionally, for example, to get an arty, experimental vibe.
You can create a chromatic aberration effect by setting up correctly before you shoot, or afterwards using Adobe photo-editing tools. We’ll give you the lowdown on both.
To create a chromatic effect, you need to choose the right conditions, composition and camera settings:
Experiment with applying chromatic aberration on purpose to videos or photos in Adobe Photoshop, Premiere Pro, or After Effects. You can take an image or film clip from average to artistic by playing with a bit of colour fringing or separating the Red, Green and Blue channels (RGB splitting).
“Chromatic aberration could add a certain type of unsteadiness or psychological space within an image.”
Adam Long, photographer
Try adding a bit of colour fringing chromatic effect to an image in Photoshop for a 3D or retro feel similar to this architecture poster by Fabio Rahmani.
Apply colour fringing or an RGB split to a video in Premiere Pro and After Effects to achieve a psychedelic look like these trippy oil and paint films by Rus Khasanov.
It all depends on the type of photography you’re shooting or perhaps the type of photographer you are.
When talking about conventional photography, chromatic aberration is generally seen as bad. This is because it can make an otherwise perfect shot imperfect with its unsightly colour fringing and blurring. You’d generally only see chromatic aberration as good if you were looking to intentionally create a contemporary, distorted look.
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