Chromatic Aberration / RGB Split

Watch as an animation →

In plain words

Shift the red, green, and blue channels slightly out of line, so color fringes appear along the edges, like a lens flaw or a digital error.

When to use it

Glitch transitions, tech and game ads, cyberpunk music videos, a beat-synced shock, and an old-lens feel.

Example videos

How To Make Chromatic Aberration Effect in Premiere Pro — Explainer: The part that makes a glitch effect where colors split apart in Premiere Pro.
Create this Chromatic Aberration effect in After Effects! — Explainer: A short tutorial on making a chromatic aberration effect in After Effects.
Pixel Prophecy — What is Chromatic Aberration? (And why?) — Real
HowDo AI — Chromatic Aberration-must know cinematography terms for AI videos-AI prompts-AI video kaise banaye — AI

In AI video, like this

You can put "chromatic aberration, RGB split at the edges" in the prompt, but to control strength and timing it is easier to apply it in editing. In ffmpeg, rgbashift=rh=-6:bh=6 moves red 6 pixels to the left and blue 6 pixels to the right. To turn it on for just a few frames on the beat, add enable='between(t,1.0,1.2)'. In Premiere Pro and After Effects, duplicate the clip, split the color channels, and offset their positions a little. If you only want a lens feel, 1–2 pixels is enough. Don't apply it to captions or logos.

One-click prompt

Split the color channels slightly for a lens-fringing, glitchy edge: ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -vf "rgbashift=rh=-4:bh=4" -c:a copy out.mp4. Use 2 to 4 pixels for subtle fringing and 10 or more for a glitch hit, and enable it for only a few frames if you want a quick pulse.

Example films

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) — To show out-of-focus areas, the colors were deliberately misaligned, as if a comic book had been printed out of register

See it in real films and ads

Pixel Prophecy — What is Chromatic Aberration? (And why?)

AI-made examples

HowDo AI — Chromatic Aberration-must know cinematography terms for AI videos-AI prompts-AI video kaise banaye

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