Chromatic aberration
Red, green, and blue fringes that appear when a lens or digital effect makes the color channels miss each other at sharp edges.
See it
What it is
Chromatic aberration is color fringing caused when a lens bends different wavelengths by different amounts, so red, green, and blue do not land in exactly the same place. In motion graphics it is usually imitated as an RGB split, with the color channels offset slightly at high-contrast edges.
Reach for a subtle version when matching CG to imperfect lens footage, or exaggerate it for a glitch, impact, or distorted-lens moment. Real lateral aberration tends to become stronger toward the frame edge, so a centered, perfectly sharp subject can remain mostly aligned.
Gotcha: shifting whole channels by the same amount across the frame looks like a digital glitch, not a lens. Large offsets also damage text, faces, and compression edges. Keep the split near high-contrast outer edges, animate it only when the effect is intentionally synthetic, and check the result at delivery resolution.
Ask AI for it
Create restrained chromatic aberration in Adobe After Effects with three duplicates and the Shift Channels effect: isolate red, green, and blue, leave green centered, offset red 1.5 pixels outward and blue 1.5 pixels in the opposite direction, and recombine with Add. Use a broad radial mask so the split grows toward the frame edges, keep the center and all small text aligned, and disable the pass on low-contrast skin.