Today’s Question: Is there any reason not to turn on the “Remove Chromatic Aberration” checkbox in Lightroom for every image, without bothering to check whether the image has chromatic aberrations in the first place?
Tim’s Quick Answer: I consider it very safe to enable the “Remove Chromatic Aberration” correction for all images, though there is a chance that saturation will be slightly reduced along contrast edges within the photo.
More Detail: The “Remove Chromatic Aberration” checkbox found in the Lens Corrections section of adjustments in the Develop module in Lightroom (and also available in Adobe Camera Raw) enables you to apply an automated correction for chromatic aberrations (color fringing) in your photos.
This feature is very convenient, and for about half the images I work on that include chromatic aberrations, simply turning on this checkbox will remove the color fringing to the point that no further correction is required.
Because the “Remove Chromatic Aberration” feature is looking for color variations along contrast edges, there is some risk that saturation will be slightly reduced along some of the contrast edges in your photo that didn’t exhibit chromatic aberrations. However, this impact would affect such small areas of the photo that I don’t consider it a significant concern.
Therefore, I would feel perfectly comfortable enabling the “Remove Chromatic Aberration” checkbox for all photos. You can even streamline that process by either updating the default adjustment settings for the Develop module, or by creating a preset that you apply during import for all photos.