Identifying Chromatic Aberration And Removing Fringing

Two techniques for improving the quality of your images

In this Insight, learn about the issue of chromatic aberration – what it is, how to identify it, and several solutions for solving it. By understanding how to remove blue or purple fringing from footage, you can easily elevate the quality of any shot.

How do you identify ‘fringing’?

Fringing is a visual artefact typically caused by the lens’s chromatic aberration or a lower-quality camera sensor.

Visually, it’s identified by a blue or purple fringe along high-contrast areas, like tree tops or buildings against a blown-out sky. It happens because the lens fails to focus all the colours of light to the same point on the camera sensor. When a camera lens induces this problem, it is called ‘chromatic aberration.’ However, in post-production,  it’s not always clear whether the fringing you see is lens-induced.

High-end lens manufacturers treat their optics to reduce aberration. However, even good-quality wide-angle lenses will feature aberration around the edges of the frame. And the quality of the camera can also induce fringing on high-contrast edges.

Key takeaways from this Insight