Today’s Question: In the past year I have started correcting for chromatic aberration and lens profile correction as part of my import preset in Lightroom. Is this a good idea to correct for aberration upon import to Lightroom for all images, or is there a potential downside to this approach? I understand that chromatic aberration correction is not needed for many images, but does it do any harm to select it for all images upon import?
Tim’s Quick Answer: In my opinion there is absolutely no reason not to apply an automatic Lens Correction adjustment during import, including the application of an automatic correction for chromatic aberration.
More Detail: To begin with, I have found the Lens Correction adjustments in Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw to be beneficial, and without causing any image quality problems for the photo. In other words, I’m comfortable applying a Lens Correction adjustment to all images, even for images that don’t necessarily need any real adjustment in this regard.
Furthermore, there is no problem applying the automatic adjustment for chromatic aberrations, even for images that don’t necessarily need such an adjustment. I have not seen any degradation in image quality based on the application of a correction for chromatic aberrations for an image that does not actually exhibit any such aberrations.
So, I think it is perfectly reasonable (and even smart) to apply Lens Corrections adjustments for all images as part of the import process in Lightroom, or as a default adjustment in both Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom.