Methods and the corresponding device are presented for the correction of lateral chromatic aberration within a digital camera or other imaging device, using calibration approaches that do not require previously acquired lens data to effect the correction. An in-camera auto-calibration procedure is performed on the attached lens, such as when a lens is exchanged, and extracts parameters required for chromatic aberration correction, respecting zoom and focus, from one or more captured images. Based on image data extracted as a plurality of channels of a chromatic decomposition of the image, the chromatic aberration information for the lens is extracted. From the chromatic aberration information, the correction factors for the lens are determined.