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Rikk Flohr_Photography
Community Manager
July 10, 2025
Question

Distraction Removal: Dust (Camera Raw and Lightroom Classic)

  • July 10, 2025
  • 225 replies
  • 23687 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:

225 replies

Participant
September 22, 2025

Used on some lower quality pictures, tool doesnt detect the dust.

Participant
September 22, 2025

PLEASE give this a keyboard shortcut in the final load (or update)

Participant
September 21, 2025

For me it's very useful. It really save time to clean the fotos from dust

JBedfordPhoto
Inspiring
September 17, 2025

I love that Adobe is FINALLY automating dust removal, a request I've been making for many years. 

 

So far, it works pretty well, but when it comes to dust spots that aren't circular in form, ACR tends to skip over them. 

 

I understand that this is a very complex task, but it will be nice to see this tool improve in the months and years to come. 

 

Great work. 

Participant
September 16, 2025

It would be great if dust and reflection corrections could be applied only to specific areas of the image, which would likely also make the AI more precise

Lendemain
rene52
Participant
September 15, 2025

Although I have only just started to use the Dust Removal Option, I ma finding it good but it doesn't pick up all of the spots which I know on my sensor (I do get it clreaned regualarly) that it dioesn't seem to pick up. The only orher thing I would like in the Beta option si a better preview or a slider across the image showing the spots it has picked up.  I still have to go over my image to find the spots the dust removeal has 'missed'

 

Inspiring
September 15, 2025

yes it is a good idea for a preview and adjust slider too

Participating Frequently
September 14, 2025

 

In this photo, the tool to remove dirt spots did not work, either separately or in batches.

 

Participant
September 13, 2025

So it moves small specs of dust but not large blurry ones.... just in case you want to improve it

Inspiring
September 10, 2025

It is a wonderful added value, hopefully this will also come to LrC

Participant
September 8, 2025

Saves me nearly an HOUR on some photos, specifically ones that are B&W conversions and gallery sized.