Use Frequency Separation to Remove Chromatic Aberration and Color Fringing

Chromatic aberration and color fringing can often be overlooked, or simply dismissed as an unavoidable issue with lenses used. However, if you're one who would like an effective way of removing that from your shots in post production, this tutorial is meant just for you.

There is so much out there, in both written form and found in video tutorials, concerning the use of frequency separation for the use of portrait work and skin retouching that it can be easily thought to be a technique solely for portrait retouchers. But this excellent instruction from Michael Breitung takes the time to illustrate for us exactly how effective frequency separation can be for other uses. I'm not sure I would have thought to use frequency separation for color work quite like what Breitung does in this video, but as I watched the tutorial it made total sense to me.

His technique is so brilliantly simple that I couldn't believe that I had not thought to do something like it before. Maybe actually like having the color fringing in your work, or maybe you see this as an unnecessary alteration, but I am really impressed with the results from putting this to use. When it comes to preparing print ready artwork, I will definitely be employing these techniques much, much more often. Perhaps you have different techniques for fixing chromatic aberration, if so, let us know what you prefer to do!

Rex Jones's picture

Rex lives in Saint George, Utah. His specialty is branding and strategy, working closely with businesses to refine their branding, scale internal structure, and produce high-quality marketing efforts. His photography is primarily commercial, with intermittent work in portraiture, product imagery, and landscape photography for his own enjoyment.

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6 Comments

Nice!

One click in Lightroom under lens corrections and its gone.

I might have to add, that the technique I show in the video is for those cases, where the lightroom technique doesn't do a proper job, like in the photo I show. And there are pelnty occasions when shooting with very wide angle lenses and when having storng contrasts or light sources in an image.

So give it a try when you encounter such a situation. If you never encounter it, all the better ;-)

Cool, gave it a watch and may refer back to it in future, who knows when it'll be useful. But yeah would be good if the article said "especially useful for when the simple solution does not work"

"I might have to add, that the technique I show in the video is for those cases, where the lightroom technique doesn't do a proper job"

And that is why people use Capture One. :)

this :P