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:

Rikk Flohr_Photography

Community Manager

Question

Distraction Removal: Dust (Camera Raw and Lightroom Classic)

Forum|Forum|7 months ago
July 10, 2025
172 replies
18354 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:

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CooledgeR

Inspiring

When the program appears to have found some dust spots, one is invited to do more dust remeoval if one cares to, at which point it hangs up and eventually must be canecelled because nothing is happening. Worthless. Not ready for prime time or anything else IMHO.

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CooledgeR

Inspiring

Worthless. Two dozen images digitized from film (which is notorius for adding dust spots) and the program has so far found no dust on any. All had to be hand-retouched. As I said. Worthless.

Erik Bloodaxe

Legend

Please take the time to read the topmost post in this thread. Your answer is there.

D

Dan_Madsen0742

Participant

This is not working for me. I get the message no dust spots found. I'm trying to remove white spots caused by dust on the scanned film image of older photographs. I can remove them manually with the healing brush tool, but it's very tedious.

Erik Bloodaxe

Legend

@15760387 Please read the topmost post in this thread. Your answer is there.

R

rene_4982

Participant

I hoffte das diese neue Funktion auch bei Unterwasser-Backscatter-Problemen hilft - Leider findet diese Funktion (fast) gar nichts.

D

defaultoj97g2nhh5kd

Participant

it would have been much better to have an option to clean backdrop floor/background and remove distractions like objects . Loving the new updates though.

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christiankremser

Participant

It doesn't work with merged HDR photos. It works perfectly with individual single images.

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Electric_Sunflower0D4B

Participant

I do quite a bit of aquatic / underwater photography with split shots - Often have little droplets as well as a few spots coming from the camera (especially visible on the sky area) and although it is not 100 % it does help and works well.