Eliminating color fringing (lateral chromatic aberration)

Eliminating color fringing (lateral chromatic aberration)
by Norman Koren

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Updated March 30, 2002

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Every once in a while I come across something on my computer that thrills me so much I want to sing. But I decided to write this web page instead. If you ever heard me sing you'd be doubly glad I did.

So why the enthusiasm? Digital cameras, ultrawide and long telephoto lenses frequently suffer from color fringing, which appears as magenta and green bands at contrast boundaries. Color fringing increases with the distance from the center of the image; it's worst at the corners. It's plainly visible in the image on the right, which is a highly magnified portion of the left side of the image below, indicated by the arrow. The image is an ice-coated tree on the Homestead trail south of Boulder, Colorado, taken with the Canon FD 20mm f/2.8 lens.

I'm excited because my image editing program, Picture Window Pro, has a new feature that allows me to easily eliminate color fringing. There was nothing I could do about it in the traditional darkroom.

Color fringing is caused by lateral chromatic aberration, one of the two types of chromatic aberration in lenses, both of which arise from dispersion in glass: the variation in its ability to bend light (its index of refraction) with wavelength (color). Longitudinal chromatic aberration is the change of the lens's point of focus for different wavelengths. Lateral chromatic aberration is the change in a lens's magnification for different wavelengths, resulting in color fringing. It tends to be worst in highly asymmetric lenses, particularly in retrofocus ultrawides (<24mm in the 35mm format), where the rear element may be further from the film than the focal length, and in true telephotos (>200mm in the 35mm format), which may be shorter than the focal length. The two types of chromatic aberration are described in Quality Criteria of Lenses by Schneider Optics. Paul vanWalree has an excellent in-depth discussion. His terminology is a little different: he uses transverse chromatic aberration (TCA) instead of lateral.

To eliminate color fringing I use Picture Window Pro's Chromatic Aberration... transformation, accessed by clicking Transformation, Color. This displays the screen shown below. The input image is on the left; the preview on the right; the Chromatic Aberration correction control box is below. For the sake of illustration the magnifications are different from what I normally work with. Both images are enlarged 2:1, meaning two screen pixels represent one image pixel. Assuming a typical screen resolution of 72 pixels per inch, 36 image pixels per inch are displayed. The original image is 3306x2238 pixels. So these images would be portions of the original image enlarged to 92x62 inches (2.3x1.6 meters). Much bigger than the 13x19 inches my Epson 1270 can print.

I normally leave the input image at its normal size (so the entire image is displayed on the screen). A crosshair (a "+" sign) in its center denotes the center of the transformation. If you cropped the image asymmetrically, you should move it the center of the original uncropped image. Now I am ready to eliminate color fringing. I move the sliders, first the Red Shift, then the Blue Shift until it is minimized. The Red Shift is much more prominent than the blue, which can be quite subtle. I typically pan the preview image (on the right) to the four corners of the image to make sure the transformation is centered properly. When I'm satisfied, I click OK. The settings for red and blue shift should be fairly consistent for a given lens. But it's so easy to see the correction in the preview window-- it appears about a second after moving the slider-- that there's no need to remember it.

After you remove the chromatic aberration there will be colored bands at the margins of the image. You will need to crop these out. Click on Transformation, Geometry, Crop/Add border..., then remove one or two pixels from the margins. Set the preview image to 1:1 and scroll to the corners to make sure you've removed the right amount. Then click OK.

You should correct chromatic aberration before sharpening. I don't know the fine details of sharpening algorithm, but it is likely performed in HSV or HSL color space on the V (Value) or L (Lightness) boundaries, which will be much more distinct after removing chromatic aberration. As I indicated in Understanding image sharpness and MTF curves, Part 2, sharpening is an integral part of the digital imaging process, quite necessary for maximizing quality. Unsharp mask is the preferred technique because it allows you to set a threshold so you can avoid exaggerating the grain in smooth areas such as skies. The effects of unsharp masking on a portion of the central tree, about 2/3 of the way up from the bottom, are shown below. Before I click OK, I pan the Preview image to make sure I'm not oversharpening (I had to reduce Amount from 100%) and Threshold isn't set too high (which reduces the effective sharpening) or too low (which allows skies to become grainy).

The final image, on the right, is strikingly sharp. It's actually slightly oversharpened, but you won't notice it in the final print. It's evident that the original negative is extremely sharp, with detail beyond the capacity of the 2400 dpi scanner to resolve. The Canon FD 20mm f/2.8 is "an excellent lens," as defined in Understanding image sharpness and MTF curves, especially after chromatic aberration is removed. Now you know why I'm writing this. The artist and gadget lover in me is trying to justify the purchase of a new Nikon 4000 dpi scanner tho the cheapskate in me.

Thank you, Jonathan Sachs, author of Picture Window Pro (and Lotus 1-2-3 at the dawn of the PC revolution).

Flo's Undistort Filter is a Photoshop plugin that performs a CA-removal similar function. It also corrects distortion.

If I were to sing, I'd start with "Nessun Dorma," Puccini's heart-wrenching ode to insomnia from his opera "Turandot." Most appropriate since the muse that drives me to write these pages often wakes me up in the middle of the night. This magnificent song expresses the hero's romantic dilemma. He's in love, but the object of his affection is a serial killer, and he's next on her list. She allows nobody to sleep, on pain of death, until she learns his name, which will give her the privelege of dismembering him. What a sweetie-pie! But all will be forgiven because she's a princess and she's beautiful. Bill Clinton won't be so fortunate. You gotta love opera.

Images and text copyright © 2000-2013 by Norman Koren. Norman Koren lives in Boulder, Colorado, where he worked in developing magnetic recording technology for high capacity data storage systems until 2001. Since 2003 most of his time has been devoted to the development of Imatest. He has been involved with photography since 1964.