Defringe
Defringe is an Advanced Editor brush that removes chromatic aberration — the saturated red, green, and blue dots and hairlines that longitudinal (axial) CA leaves on out-of-focus highlights. Think of the bright color speckles on a spider-web junction, a glassy specular reflection, or the filaments of a backlit fungus.
Advanced mode. The Defringe button appears in the Editor header only in Advanced mode. If you don’t see it, flip the Standard / Advanced switch at the top-right of the Editor. See Editor overview.
Why it’s a brush, not a slider
Section titled “Why it’s a brush, not a slider”The false color from CA and the genuine fine color in your image are inseparable across the whole frame — a single global “defringe everything” control would mute real color everywhere. So Defringe is a local tool: you brush roughly over the artifact, and Macro Studio neutralizes the color only there.
What it does (and doesn’t do)
Section titled “What it does (and doesn’t do)”Defringe is chroma-only. Inside each brush stamp, color that strays from the local background is pulled back toward it, while brightness and detail (luma) are left untouched. That’s the key difference from Retouch or Source Cloning: it doesn’t paint over or clone anything, so it won’t smear texture or erase real structure like web strands. The trade-off is a faint neutral (gray) residual where a bright colored artifact used to be — usually much less distracting than the original fringe.
Those leftover neutral spots can usually be removed completely with a quick follow-up pass of Retouch: defringe first to strip the color, then spot-heal the remaining gray speck.
Using the brush
Section titled “Using the brush”- Open a result in the Editor and click Defringe in the header.
- Left-drag across the fringe to paint. Unlike Retouch (one spot per click), Defringe paints continuously as you drag — natural for tracing a colored line or covering a speckled patch.
- Repeat over each fringed area. You don’t need to be precise; brushing roughly over the artifact is enough.
While the brush is active, an on-screen hint shows the navigation controls:
| Action | Control |
|---|---|
| Paint | Left-drag |
| Pan | ⌘-drag / Ctrl-drag, or right-drag |
| Zoom | Scroll |
| Resize the brush | ⌘+scroll / Ctrl+scroll |
Undo and redo work per stroke (⌘Z / Ctrl+Z, and ⇧⌘Z / Ctrl+Shift+Z), and Esc exits the brush. Like the rest of the Editor, Defringe is non-destructive until you save — the change is baked into the file only when you Save.
- Zoom in first. CA fringe is small — zoom to 100% or more so you can see exactly what you’re neutralizing.
- Match the brush to the artifact. A brush much larger than the fringe neutralizes color over a wider area than you need; size it down (⌘/Ctrl+scroll) for tight lines.
- Reach for it when global tools can’t help. If desaturating or shifting color across the whole image would hurt your subject, Defringe is the targeted alternative.
See also
Section titled “See also”- Retouch — the spot-removal brush for dust and blemishes. It paints over a problem; Defringe neutralizes color without covering detail.
- Editor overview — where Defringe sits among the Editor tools.
- Saving — your defringe edits are baked into the saved file.