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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
  • 23856 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
August 18, 2025

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
August 18, 2025

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

Participant
August 18, 2025

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

Participant
August 17, 2025

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

Participant
August 16, 2025

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

Participant
August 16, 2025

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. 

Participant
August 16, 2025

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

Jhofman
Participant
August 16, 2025

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.  

Erik Bloodaxe
Legend
August 16, 2025

At the ouset it is stated, "Please note that scanned negatives are not in the scope of this feature at this time."

Participant
August 19, 2025

It would clearly be much appreciated if it could work on scans as soon as possible! 

Inspiring
August 15, 2025

Killed a lot of birds. It gets iffy as the ISO goes up. Sensor dust for the most part has a very characteristic shape.

Known Participant
August 15, 2025

The Distraction Removal- could sections we expand remain expanded for next time used?