Modern lenses are incredibly powerful tools to view 3D configurators, masterpieces of optical manufacturing. Despite the incredible care with which they are built, they are not always perfect.
Like most things in life when it comes to lenses, the best quality lenses are usually very expensive, but even the top-of-the-line lenses, which cost several thousand dollars, can still have some problems with distortion.
The cheaper the lens, the more likely it is that it will suffer from these problems.
But with a little work in Photoshop, you can fix the problem quite easily.
Also known as “chromatic aberration” for technically interested, there are a number of ways that color fringing can affect the quality of their images. Probably the most common type is a slight green, pink, or purple color fringing at the edges of certain objects, but depending on the lens, subject, and lighting conditions, it can appear in other ways.
This type of color fringing is more likely to be found on the edges of subjects backlit against a brighter area, but it can occur almost anywhere where two areas of very different contrast meet.
Adobe software developer Eric Chan, responsible for the competitors of chromatic aberration in Photoshop and Lightroom, explains the different types of chromatic aberration in an article in the Lightroom Journal.
“Red-green and blue-yellow fringes at the edge of the image are caused by lateral chromatic aberration. This problem is relatively easy to solve… violet and green fringes in blurred areas and along high-contrast boundaries are much more problematic.
These fringes are caused by axial chromatic aberration, aberrations in sensor microlenses and flare. In most cases, violet fringes appear in front of the focal plane and green fringes appear behind the focal plane. The aberrations can appear anywhere in the image, not just on the image periphery.”
Fortunately, color fringing is such a common problem that Adobe has developed part of Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) to eliminate it. If you are not yet familiar with ACR, you should switch to RAW mode.
When you load your RAW image file into Photoshop, Camera Raw starts automatically so you can change a variety of settings, and this is the easiest way to remove your color fringes or at least most of them.
Switch to the Lens Corrections tab and you’ll get some options for correcting a variety of lens problems, as you can see below. Most options on the Profile tab are automatic solutions for correcting lens distortion, which are fantastic if they work properly. Unfortunately, however helpful they may be, they’re not always the best solution. It’s always worth a try, so check the “Remove Chromatic Aberration” box and you’ll see if it does the job.
Because of the subtle color fringes, it is important to view your photo at 100% zoom to make sure that the settings you choose have the desired effect. When resizing the image, you may not notice any edges at all, but it quickly becomes apparent if you’re planning to make prints – and it’s always a bit frustrating to have to go back after printing to correct something you could have corrected earlier.
If the automatic solution doesn’t fix all the color fringes you see, it’s time to switch to the “Manual” tab, which provides a simple and convenient arrangement of sliders that can correct the most common types of color fringes.
As powerful as this tool is, it’s not the last option you have. If the manual sliders are not able to remove all color fringes, the best solution is to fully load the file into Photoshop and switch to the Clone Stamp tool. This can be very time consuming, but is often the only way to repair stubborn color fringes and provides incredible control.
As with any clone stamp, make sure you work on a separate layer so that all your edits are not destructive. That’s easier than it sounds and it’s a good habit to get in there. Just create a new layer, name it after something special, and set the Sample drop-down menu of the Clone Stamp tool to Current and Below, which allows you to clone pixels directly to their new layer without changing the underlying pixels.
Be sure to reduce the brush size to no more than the width of the color fringes to minimize the impact of your changes on the overall image. Don’t forget to work with 100% zoom.
Fixing of colour fringes during post-processing.
One last thing to keep in mind is that although it is always possible to correct color fringes with Photoshop, it is usually a good idea to start by minimizing the process while still photographing.
Lenses that have been opened to their maximum aperture tend to have color fringes, so closing the aperture can, if possible, help simplify your post-processing time.
It may seem like a waste of money to spend a total of $3,000 on a single lens, but the extra cost is not just marketing. The more expensive a lens is, the greater its possibilities are – but that’s not all. Different materials are often used in lens elements, and optical coatings are more effective at minimizing effects such as chromatic aberration. While of course not everyone can afford the best lenses, the extra money is really a long way to make your photos as incredible as possible. Buy the best you can afford and you won’t regret the extra investment.
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