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
20616 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

TONY VAN GALEN

Participant

I always try to keep my sensor and gear clean but I do have an archive of B&W negatives that really need some intelligent way of dust removal. Color negatives and slides use the dust removal from my Nikon Coolscan 5000ED but this doesn't work with b&w...

H

Hannah336829518xwv

Participant

Doesn't work for scans of c prints (darkroom prints); would be amazing to see a dust removal feature that works for film negatives and print scans 🤞

M

mpvervier@comcast.net

Participant

I tried using the early release AI dust removal and it didn't work on my photos. They are Sony ARW raw files. See the attached samples.

D

defaultyvc34qwauhzh

Participant

Funktioniert sehr gut!

J

jvik

Known Participant

Doesn't seem to do anything. After "Apply" I get either "No dust spots found", which is fine, or "Click on a removed area ..." but there are no removed areas indicated.

J

jennylens

Participant

USELESS for Scanned Photos. Yes, I know ALL your focus is on Digital images and AI. But there are many photographers and archivists dealing with prints, negs and slides. Which are dusty, scratched and pitted. YET of VITAL Historical Importance.

Too much to ask that you remember us?? Cos the photos I took provide so much joy and content to many books, docs, mags, merch and more, and of course online. But my photos can never be replicated cos they were of a special time and place.

Oh well, never mind, back to endless hours of fixing my photos that labs mucked up cos Adobe doesn't care about film photographers and archivists.

Erik Bloodaxe

Legend

You seem to be criticising this new tool because it was not designed to perform a different function which you would like to see implemented. It was designed to tackle the problem of sensor dust spots and nothing more. Perhaps what you want may come in the future.

J

jennylens

Participant

Yes I seem to be asking for something ONLY because Adobe always manages to never upgrade tools for film photographers and archivists.

Gee, how else can we respond to tools but to say hey, what about another group of photographers who have been supporting, teaching and evangelizing for Adobe Photoshop since version one, circa 1990?

Jenny
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Jenny Lens, MFA, most published early punk rock photographer, west coast, first gen, 1976-80 when music ROCKED. Also teacher, writer, artist.

PunkPioneers.com - store and rebuilding membership site

Pedro Cortez Marques

Legend

Great to see this and test it out.

If it removes 80% of the spots, it's ready to be public, even if it can get even better later on, because I tested on some images where it removed one unrelated to sensor dust dot that should have been kept.

Miguel Claro

Participant

Thank you for creating this helpful tool. This is something I've been waiting for so long. It's not yet perfect, as it seems to loose some dust dots, but for sure it's a working progress. I was thinking that if perhaps the tool could analyse more than one photo, like a short sequence of images, as it works on timelapses, it might help to distinguish and understand where are located the dust dots as these are the only ones that should stand still on the sequence.

M

MrWinnieThePooh

Inspiring

Impressed - it works fine me and, in practice, I find it one of the most useful recent enhancements.

S

steve_8334

Participant

Just tried it on an old digitized slide. It removed some of my dust spots, but not all.