What is chromatic aberration?

Chromatic aberration is a lens flaw where red, green, and blue light don't land in the same place, so edges get colored fringes. Camera makers work hard to get rid of it. As an effect it's popular, though: it gives photos a vintage or dreamy lens look. The stronger "RGB split" version is a staple of glitch art, VHS styles, and music covers.

Tool description

Open an image, pick a mode, and set the amount. Shift moves the red channel one way and the blue channel the other way across the whole image, along the angle you set. Lens moves them outward and inward from the middle instead. The center stays sharp and the fringes grow toward the corners, like with a cheap lens. Compare with the original, then download the result at full size.

Features

  • Shift mode for a straight RGB split at any angle
  • Lens mode for realistic fringes that grow toward the edges
  • Smooth results, even for moves smaller than a pixel
  • Keeps transparency, with colored ghosts outside the edges

How it works

The tool keeps the green channel where it is and moves red and blue the same distance in opposite directions. In Lens mode, the move grows with the square of the distance from the middle and reaches the full amount at the corners. So the middle stays sharp and the fringes grow toward the edges, as with real lenses. Where a channel lands between pixels, the tool blends the neighboring pixels, so the fringes stay smooth.

Tips

  • A few pixels in Lens mode look like a real photo. Large Shift amounts look like a glitch.
  • An angle of 0 gives the classic horizontal split, with red to the right and blue to the left.
  • High contrast edges, such as dark shapes against the sky, show the effect most.