STEP by STEP

ADD CHROMATIC ABERRATION TO AN IMAGE

01Chromatic image Preparation

aberration is best added at the end, so first, complete your usual image composition. Put a copy of your layers in a folder for safekeeping (optional) or just start a new project. Make sure your composition is merged down to a single layer, then duplicate it twice. Set the duplicates to Lighten.

02 CHOOSE your Channels

Decide which colours you want to create the effect with. Green and blue work here. Select the first duplicate, go to Levels and change the Red and Blue output levels to 0, leaving the Green levels untouched. Select the second duplicate and set Red and Green levels to 0, leaving Blue as it is. Rename layers accordingly.

03 distortion

Select the Green layer, activate the Move tool and press the left arrow on the keyboard (twice should be enough). Select the Blue layer and shift it to the right. Do not shift them by too many clicks because it will make the distortion too great, and your image will be painful to look at.

04 EMBOSS

If you want to boost your image details even more, you can try adding an overlay of Filter/stylize/emboss on top. Experiment and play with the options for the angle, height and amount of Emboss, to see what works best with the lighting of your scene.