The wave departures from sphericity known as Seidel's primary- or third-order aberrations are represented by a differential operator that modifies the diffraction-limited image. We show that the complex amplitude at any point over the aberrant image can be obtained from certain terms of the Taylor series expansion of the diffraction limited image. This approach allows us to describe the propagation of an aberrant wave front in terms of its aberration coefficients. Furthermore, it can also be applied to implement an optical or an electronic procedure for simulating aberrant images.