Chromatic aberration is the failure of a lens to focus all colors to the same point. To a cinematographer this can be an undesired effect, but in motion graphics it can be a very nice addition. While it would be great to capture chromatic aberration naturally with real lenses, most modern lenses aim to minimize this effect. This is why we are dedicating this tutorial to learning how to recreate this phenomenon using built-in after effects plugins.
Learn how to Create Chromatic Aberration
Mar 4th in Motion Graphics by Lloyd
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PreviewMusic used in the final piece:
Clenastro from AUDIO JUNGLE
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User Comments
( ADD YOURS )Joe March 4th
Thanks, I was wondering how to get this effect
( )Parrudinho March 4th
Thanks, very good ^_^
( )Chris March 4th
Thanks for the cool tutorial however I did look into this a month or two ago and came across this same question on Creative Cow.
http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/2/932697
“But then, you just apply the set channels effect to Red on one layer, duplicate the layer twice, change the set channels on the other two layers to Blue & Green, select the layers, change them to the add blending mode, use a set position keyboard shortcut (opt-p mac, alt-p win), move the timeline cursor, move the layers, and it’s animated. Move the keyframes around on the timeline to tweak the speed of the effect.”
This way you don’t need to use the tint effect.
Love your work btw!
( )Lloyd Alvarez March 4th
@Chris – At the end of the tutorial I explain why I used the Tint effect. My goal with this tutorial was to dissect this effect for the greatest amount of creative options. You can use as many or as few of these options as you’d like.
( )Chris March 4th
Ah, I should watch the whole tutorial before I get all uppity. That’s a pretty cool btw.
Billy March 4th
I’m still not getting anything when attempting to open up aetuts with Internet Explorer. In addition, I noted many people over at psdtuts.com complaining that they can’t get in with IE here or at vectortuts.com. Any chance this is going to get fixed?
( )Lloyd Alvarez March 4th
We are working on it. In the meantime if you wouldn’t mind using firefox or safari, it should work as expected.
( )Sympathic Ironie October 23rd
either Opera work
, only microsoft seems to flop, strange ?
Savana Pictures March 4th
You always do a fantastic job! Can we email you for topic tutorials in the future? lol.
( )youssef sarhan March 4th
you’re putting out great tuts.
( )Logofi.com March 4th
Thats a really cool effect! Great stuff, guys!
( )Carl Larsen March 4th
Lloyd – just in case you want to remove chromatic aberration from your footage instead of adding it, check out the creative cow podcast from last Friday:
http://podcasts.creativecow.net/after-effects-tutorials-podcast/removing-chromatic-aberration
( )Lloyd Alvarez March 4th
Hey Carl, Very serendipitous! I actually found out about your podcast from Rich’s post on aeportal as well as maltaannon’s pixel bender plugin.. There must be chromatic aberration in the air!
( )Carl Larsen March 5th
We must be… or we’re just getting used to the look of cheap optics.
Viktor March 4th
Great
( )Looking forward for more of your tutorials
merb March 5th
Es muy bueno, y útil! gracias!
( )kamal98 March 5th
wow you guys are amazing!!!
( )BeyondOurGain March 5th
“Because we are in Aftereffects, we can do whatever we want” – maaan, that’s the words
))))
( )Bakoc March 7th
I always do this rgb split with channel mixer its quicker, but then again it’s not 32-bit plug-in
( )Mitchell H. March 7th
Lovin it, love the math.
( )Joe Clay March 10th
Nice use of optics compensation. A slight amount makes it much easier to do than having to precompose and then mask a non-CA version for a realistic effect.
( )Nokadota March 10th
This is interesting, I’ll look into this effect more.
( )greg March 13th
Nice tut! I have a problem with it though:
My comp is NTSC DV and my footage is 1080p. Now I want to move the footage around while looking through a camera, so it looks like the camera is panning acros the shot.
How can I apply the CA effect so it stays at the borders of my comp size, and not the source footage size?
( )Lloyd Alvarez March 13th
Pre-Comp your source footage and do the pan across in the pre-comp.
( )Oliver March 19th
Thanks for another great tut! This effect has been bugging me for ages. And I really like how you go into ‘why’ the effects happen, not just ‘how’.
Would you be able to do a tut on a digital signal break up? I have no idea where to start, and the analogue version has its limits nowadays.
( )sncfrk April 3rd
Awesome tutorial thanks
but-
how did you get that awesome warping effect in the first place? It looks really authentic. Do you have a tutorial for effects like those?
thanks!
( )Lloyd April 3rd
http://ae.tutsplus.com/tutorials/motion-graphics/animate-type-the-old-school-way/
( )TMKdesigner April 22nd
Hey, awesome tut, thanks
But i have a question… on your Cinematic Opening Title Redux tutrial, the chromatic aberration is happening on the rim of the camera lens. How did you make that work? Did u render out the movie and took it back into AE and did what u did here in this tut? Or did u somehow apply an “adjustment” layer that works the optical compensation?
Thanks
( )Lloyd April 22nd
Create the effect with the layers split into the rgb channels then put the original unaffected layer on top with a feathered mask in the center so that you only see the chromatic aberration effect on the edge. The feathering helps make it a smooth transition to the original layer in the center.
( )TMKdesigner April 22nd
Thanks for the tip, you’re and inspiration
Jeff April 28th
The hangup I’m having seems to be that this method only works when you’re not intending to composite the footage. You can’t make any changes to the background without ruining the effect. Pre-comping and/or rendering don’t solve it. Any thoughts?
( )Thijs May 7th
can you also make it whit a video so not whit the text but whit a video?/
-Thijs
( )Lloyd May 7th
yes, of course
( )hoktar June 5th
Your way of explaining the things and your comments are epic
It’ awesome to listen to your voice^^
Ant for the tutorial:
Thank you so much, I always wanted to know how to create real looking chrom ab. It just makes CG stuff way more realistic.
Awesome site too btw, great design!
( )ryan June 11th
Hay what screen recorder did you use to make this? I’ve been trying for awhile to find a good one to make tutorials with and this one seems nice because it brings up keystrokes.
Ryan
( )Henry Hoyos August 5th
Hey,
Great website guys! Spectacular tutorial. This helps me out greatly. I’ve been secretly obsessed with this effect for some time now but never knew how to do it. Now I do!
I’m still a bit lost when it comes to making the effect subtle though (As in the Cinematic Opening Redux). I can’t seem to get the effect to turn out the way I want.
The Optics Compensation effect doesn’t give me the aberration I’m looking for, and it warps the frame undesirably. I’ve tried to move the top and bottom layers in opposite directions by 1 pixel, looks interesting but not what I was going for. I’ve also tried to scale the top and bottom layers by 1% in opposite directions, this helped but didn’t quite get the same look. It seems like I’m only getting a red and green aberration but the rest of the colors are sort of lost in the mess.
How do you get the beautiful prysmatic effect you did in the Cinematic Opening Redux?
Here are some other examples of the subtle prysmatic effect I’m trying to get.
1. The spectacular sequence by Loyd Alvarez. How did you get the beautiful prysmatic effect you get here. Even on the very edges of the frame there are times where you can see every color in the spectrum. I need to know how to get this effect!
http://ae.tutsplus.com/tutorials/motion-graphics/cinematic-opening-title-redux-day-1/
2. The incredible sequence by Wes Kandel. How do you get the subtle effect like this. It’s great!
http://ae.tutsplus.com/tutorials/motion-graphics/war-or-how-to-create-a-3d-particle-generated-video-display/
3. In this beautiful collection of sample clips, using a Letus 35mm adapter, it looks like at about 31 seconds you can see some natural chromatic aberration, when the man and the woman walk by. Is it possible to get something like this inside of AE?
http://downloads.letusdirect.com/extreme/featured/letusdirect720.mp4
4. In this demo on the Letus 35mm adapter there’s a beautiful shot with chroamtic aberration at about 29 seconds, the wide shot on the wire cars. Is it possible to get something in AE?
http://exposureroom.com/members/philipbloom.aspx/assets/cb3a118c5f254a93892e72c029ee21a5
I feel sort’a embarrassed posting this because I realized how long I typed. I’m sorry this turned out to be the longest comment in the history of comments, but I’ve been trying to get this effect for a very long time and you guys inspire me tremendously. Thanks so very much for your help and for creating this great website!
Henry
( )