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 with removing distracting spots on an image that may be caused by dust on a camera's sensor. 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:

Question

Distraction Removal: Dust (Camera Raw and Lightroom Classic)

Forum|Forum|8 months ago
July 10, 2025
197 replies
20617 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 with removing distracting spots on an image that may be caused by dust on a camera's sensor.

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:

Show previous replies

gregb68838334

Participant

Love this feature. I have tried it a couple of times and its been great. Thanks.

D

Design-Kink

Participating Frequently

Perhaps this was made to only find dust on the lens?
I have a RAW file with little white dust dots all over a black product surface and this filter doesn't see it at all and says there is no dust.

A

Arlo_Reeves

Participant

I got a little too excited as I'm scanning in a lifetime of negatives at the moment. Dust removal adds several minutes to every image and I'm somewhat surprised that it's not been automated yet. So that would be my feature request. Sensor dust removal isn't usually a problem for me unless using small apertures (high f-number) which is rare. I find sensor dust a problem mostly when my aperture is set to a range of values where diffraction is negatively affecting my image resolution. That's the same realm where I might see sensor dust. Also the newer DSLRs have pretty effect dust removal tech in my experience. But thanks for chasing this important feature down. We will use the heck out of it.

Arlo

Angel Scan

Known Participant

Dust removal tool works very good!!!

I hope it will be very soon implemented in Lightroom too

I do the main RAW development in Lightroom!

thanks to de Developer Team

Charly

S

saxi.sen

Participant

prinzipiell funktioniert das tool schon recht gut.
im vorliegenden fall erkennt das tool jedoch nicht alle sensorflecken - obwohl das foto ein paar sekunden nach jenem foto geschossen wurde, auf dem ALLE flecken automatisch entfernt wurden.
toi, toi, toi für die weiterentwicklung - ich freue mich sehr auf dieses feature ...
gruß aus wien / austria

V

Verdid

Participant

Cette preversion est déja tres performante, mais sur le ciel certains taches de forme non circulaires ne sont pas détectées. probablement confondues avec des oiseaux

S

saiytil

Participant

Bonjour,
Efficacité perfectible, surtout sur les images détaillées.
Pourtant certaines sont tres visibles
Cdt

R

richards23734419

Participant

I've been experimenting with spot removal on some macro shots. So far I'm very impressed as it has removed not only lens dust but also background artifacts that spoiled the appearnce of the picture.

I

IVB

Participant

It will run correctly for me and won't remove anything!

Jhofman

Participant

I was excited to try this on my B&W negatives which don't benefit from my scanner's ICE dust removal technology. Unfortunately it didn't work. I tested a dusty scan and it didn't detect any dust.