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Rikk Flohr_Photography
Community Manager
July 10, 2025
Question

Distraction Removal: Dust (Camera Raw and Lightroom Classic)

  • July 10, 2025
  • 378 replies
  • 27346 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:

378 replies

robertd28359942
Participant
September 4, 2026

it’s terrible, basically useless

Participant
September 3, 2026

ola nao curti muito fraco o evoto é melhor nesta parte de remocao de poera e reflexo no camera raw nao funciona bem 

Participant
September 3, 2026

Thanks for the tip. I will check it out.

Participant
August 31, 2026

Doesn’t detect the spots correctly or choose the correct size.

Participant
September 1, 2026

It seems to detect them but does not delete them. I have success when I process my images with Topaz Photo AI and use Denoise.

Participant
August 30, 2026

Lots of tiny black mold spots on my slides. This does nothing to erase them. Any suggestions?

Darth SLR
Participating Frequently
August 29, 2026

Never works for me. Sorry. 

Participant
August 25, 2026

The Auto /AI dust removal doesn’t seem to do anything. I was able to do manual dust removal, but then all of a sudden the Tool that is the “target” spot does not show up. This happened after I hit “apply” to try auto removal, and got a message, that no dust was found.  Then unable to do any manual clean up. This is on a scanned print in jpeg format.

Participant
August 25, 2026

Does anyone have a solution for this?

Participant
August 25, 2026

The workflow doesn’t seem to exactly match the information popup.  I don’t see it doing anything on a scan of an old negative with a large number of dust spots.

Participant
August 23, 2026

its an film scanned digital image  which can see many white spots and the tinny scratch, don't know how to remove ?

Alex Pachman
Participant
August 22, 2026

I’ve been having trouble editing scanned slides and the dust removal not recognizing the dust or scratches on the slides… it occasionally works, but I’ve had to do 95% of it manually

Participating Frequently
August 18, 2026

Did not work at all on a vintage B&W photo covered with specs and dust. Simply said “No dust specs found”.

Participant
August 25, 2026

I have the same issue