Question

Distraction Removal: Dust (Camera Raw and Lightroom Classic)

Forum|Forum|11 months ago
July 10, 2025
232 replies
24462 views

This post applies to Camera Raw and Lightroom Classic.

Dust Removal is no longer in Early Access status and can be found in the Remove edit panel for Camera Raw & Lightroom Classic. Dust Removal helps remove distracting spots in an image that may be caused by dust on a camera's sensor and is also effective on dust on the rear lens element.

Once enabled, your image will be scanned, and any detected dust spots will be automatically removed using Content-Aware Remove. For refinement, you can select one or multiple spots to delete or refresh. Batch removal is also supported; simply select the "Dust" checkbox under "Remove" in the copy settings dialog.

Please note that scanned negatives are not in the scope of this feature at this time.

Dust spots on scans tend to be located in the focal plane, with the negative and very sharp, while sensor dust is typically positioned out of the focal plane and therefore not in focus.
Scanned negative dust typically appears as white spots on a darker background, whereas perceived sensor dust tends to appear as dark spots in lighter areas.

We would love to hear your feedback on Dust Removal! Please give it a try and let us know what you think:

How is it useful?
How could it be more useful?
What could we do to improve your experience?

Lisa Ngo, Product Manager

Also see this video by @brianmatiash where he demos the feature: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwpUX4b6igY

Posted by:

J

Justus5C73

Participating Frequently

Works sensationally, about to become my favorite Lr feature.

gegjr

Inspiring

@Rikk Flohr_Photography ,

"Dust spots on scans tend to be located in the focal plane, with the negative and very sharp, while sensor dust is typically positioned out of the focal plane and therefore not in focus.
Scanned negative dust typically appears as white spots on a darker background, whereas perceived sensor dust tends to appear as dark spots in lighter areas."

This is good information, thanks

"In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."~Martin Luther King, Jr.

A

adamn43201247

Participant

the dust removal works pretty well on smaller particles. It struggles with mixed cloud skies to see the dust spot also more faded larger particles aren’t recognized by LR. otherwise works great.

E

Edward1549

Participating Frequently

It been a long time since this came out. Still waiting for this to work in the future with scanned inverted negatives (especially Tiff files) . Lots of people doing hybrid work scanning new or old negatives and prints into the computer and using LR and PS.

A

AmadeuszAndrzejewski

Participant

Doesn’t work for me. Says ‘no dust detected’. Well, my biological stupidity can find quite a few dust spots here

J

Justus5C73

Participating Frequently

This feature isn’t about dust on objects, but dust spots caused by dirt on lens and sensor.

Maximiiian.R

Participant

Dust removal tool does not activate all the time. If fails to allow user to select the dust spots after selecting Apply. Then, user is forced to use the remove option with AI.

Alexander+Tverdoklib

Participant

"Dust removal doesn't always work correctly. It would be great to combine it with AI masks, for example, applying it only to the background."

It deletes print in hmodel cloth

mb20023458

Participant

doesn’t work for me; totally useless; zero dust removed - changed size from 1-10 pixels make no difference. Sad because it would be very helpful tool.

S

Sherry-port4u

Inspiring

Dust removal in Lightroom classic works very well on dark spots in skies. My post is a request to Adobe to make a switch to allow it to find light spots on a dark background. Maybe you are not using dust removal tool in the best way. Contact tech support.

gegjr

Inspiring

Honestly, I don't understand the difference in viewing dust and spots on a totally white image versus on a black screen. Why does LrC dust removal turn a totally white page to totally black when the visualize slider is moved to the right and are all those white spots really dust spots? I don't believe it! When I view the same page normally with visualize disabled I can actually see the dark spots or dust if you will and there is in no way near that many! So when using visualize with slider all the way to right, illustrated in my previous post, are all the white areas just noise? As you know, sensors show noise in the absence of light.

Adobe needs to explain more and without a lot of techno bable how the feature works.

"In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."~Martin Luther King, Jr.

S

Sherry-port4u

Inspiring

Add the ability to remove white dust from a dark background