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
18386 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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Doubsie

Known Participant

While I guess dust removal is a very importantant feature for land photographers but for underwater phoyographer " Back Scatter isa a similarly difficult thing to deal with in a batch It would be very nice if Adobe could look into including a tool to remove backscatter from images at a stroke. Back scatter is the natural debris that is often found in the water and reflects the light of the flash or lights. It is usually manefested as white specles.

G

GianlucaP.

Participant

It is very useful. Very intuitive and precise

T

TerryWMcKB

Participant

Used only on macro thus far. Impressive.

johnm271253

Participating Frequently

Hi Lisa,

I tried this tool long back but it also removed the light reflection within the eye in a portrait, the most sensitive area of a picture. I gues I must mask out the face or eyes first?

Thanks

John Maynard

M

mikestiglianese

Participant

Quick and effective for sky areas. Not quite as effective on more detail, but still an extremely useful tool. Will save hours of work and eyestrain.

ACEkin

Participating Frequently

I tried to remove the dust and specks on a black fountain pen photograph, but it said this image has no dust spots. There were plenty! I am not sure what I did wrong.

Erik Bloodaxe

Legend

To my eyes, this is not sensor dust. That is what this tool is designed to remove, nothing else I'm afraid.

S

Saipanman

Participant

~~The new spot remover is one of the best new tools available. You have no idea how many hours I have spent removing dust and spots. Thank you~~

G

GUY16B8

Participant

C'est parfait! surtout que j'étais avec un diaphragme de 18 au 500mm. merci adobe

N

nadia_9954

Participant

I had an enormous dirty/dusty lens and it is obviously visible. The pictures are quite grainy as I shot with an high ISO on a b&w film. but this function doesn't seem to find the dust....it's a pity. Would have saved me from a lot of work.

Erik Bloodaxe

Legend

That's because this function is for the removal of sensor dust only as advertised - see the topmost post in this thread. It does not work for dust on lenses or scans of negatives.

S

saranathana90659322

Participant

Excellent tool and results as expected

ASN Images

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