(Early Access) Distraction Removal: Dust (Camera Raw)

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Announcing Early Access to a new feature in Adobe Camera Raw (17.5) – Dust Removal

This post applies to Camera Raw.

The team is sharing an early look at Dust Removal, which can be found in the Remove edit panel for Camera Raw. 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 the detected dust spots will automatically be removed using Content-Aware Remove. For refinement, you can select one or multiple spots to delete or refresh. Batch removal is supported as well, just 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 in the focal plane with the negative and very sharp, while sensor dust is typically out of the focal plane and not in focus.
  
• Scanned negative dust tends to show as white spots on a darker background, while perceived sensor dust tends to show 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:

[mf16B8]

Géniale la suppression de poussières !!! Je suis enchantée !

[capteurdimagedanielthomas]

Just WOW !!!

[ANDRESCARDONADIGITAL]

Quitar el polvo de por ejemplo una superficie de acrilico no es posible, dice que no hay motas de polvo a pesar de que con las tintas planas se ven las motas de polvo. 

[luigi umbertoc88838141]

ottimo

[marjgreen]

I love the idea of automatic dust & scratch removal, but it didn't work on a car fender -- dark colored car, lots of easily visible dust. It only saw a very few of them

[jrsforums]

@marjgreen It's sensor dust removal!

[marjgreen]

The response saying it's only sensor/lens dust removal makes sense as to why it didn't help with the dust on a car fender. It would be great if Adobe could expand the software so it does help fix other kinds of dust. For example, the Wires Removal also works well on removing heavy cobwebs.

[Audrey25272918q8mr]

La suppression des tâches capteurs une dinguerie !!! bien joué ! canon ! 

[jexa]

parfait

[anderss88634803]

Really Nice!  It works and save a ton om work for me  😄  When will it come to Lightroom??

[MimiSnap]

After using this tool to remove the dust spot, when I continue my editing and when I zoom out I can see, not the dust, but the circles that indicate where the dust spots were.

[jrsforums]

@MimiSnap you need to update your AI adjustments....far right icon (probably orange, because updates needed) above 'Basic'

[MimiSnap]

Thank you! I'm doing it at this very moment. 😊

*Michel Lamontagne*

[jrg63]

I have an action that does a Dust Removal, invokes a plugin that does HDR, then another Dust Removal as the HDR process quite often brings out other dust issues. I have the checkbox turned on to show the dialog inside the action. If I run this from Automate -> Batch Processing, it works correctly for the first image. When it processes the second image, the dust spot removal areas show up from the previous images as grey areas. Resetting Camera Raw doesn't fix this, resetting the Dust tool doesn't fix it. For the life of me, I can't figure out how to get it treat the image as a new image. Any suggestions?

[Ronalmeida]

In one of my photos, not all the dirt spots were deleted in version 14.5.1

[Steve C2]

Respectfully, my feedback is not positive.  I just tested the ACR dust filter on a scan from an old print.  The ACR dust filter is not a credible solution to removing dust from such tiffs, especially in comparison not only with Topaz Photo AI, but with Photoshop's Neural Photo Restoration filter.  If the intent is to only identify and remove incidental dust from a digital image, IMO, this ACR filter is a complete waste of time.  That can easily be accomplished elsewhere.  You can contact me if you want more information.

[jrsforums]

@Steve C2 the reason it does not work for dust on prints is that it was not designed for it.  As announced, it is designed to remove sensor dust.

[Design-Kink]

Then perhaps they should rename it to "sensor dust removal", then people subscribed to this thread would have a cleaner inbox. 

[jrsforums]

@Design-Kink all the announce material on the feature (written and YouTube) speak of 'sensor dust removal'.  Also, a simple reading of the header on this thread points it out.  While it is, now, specific to sensor dust removal, naming it such would restrict any expansion to other dust removal....which y'all seem to want and Adobe has alluded as potential additions.

[Steve C2]

Yes, the filter may not have been designed for this. Nonetheless, Adobe
asked me to provide feedback. I typically don't spend much time in the
forums. Having said this, I will now comment that I find the filter to be
a curious use of development resources. If one has a few specs of dust in
a digital image, that is easy to cure. If one has countless specs of dust,
then one likely is not taking proper care to keep one's lenses and sensor
clean.

[ExUSA]

I have a Canon 6D that has seen heavy use and has been professionally cleaned but still has sensor dust spots. Its not a lack of proper care, its using gear. And its not always easy to cure, especially when shooting large numbers of photos.

I haven't tested this feature as my 5D IV has a lot cleaner sensor, but I may have to test it out.

[Erik Bloodaxe]

Please read the original post:

"Please note that scanned negatives are not in the scope of this feature at this time."

[BoosterMrs]

i am an ICM photographer, one of many around the world. Many of us use high F stops and therefore will have dust spots visible on our photographs. I thought I would try out this new feature today. I have tried with two different camera. The first camera I used visibly I could see no spots when zoomed in close (using an F stop of F22) . However when I used the dust removal tool it did show lots of the little circles. So I was perplexed. Then I tried another camera using an F stop of F 29. All those images had visible spots when zoomed. The first image I did worked beautifully. But the next few the removal tool said there were no dust spots. And the last image I processed with the tool took away some dust spots but not all of them. I realize the Dust Removal Tool is in its early stage. But if it does work out better, the people who do Intentional Camera Movement will be very thankful.

[Aimé Feys]

het is ontworpen om stof op de lens of sensor weg te filteren, het doet in Camera RAW voor mij perfect zijn werk

[Angel Scan]

Now, after using it for a while, especially with photos from my older D750 camera, I'm very satisfied with the current state of the tool's development. It's not perfect yet (it probably never will be), but it already offers a tremendous time saving! (It would save even more time if it were finally implemented in Lightroom!!!)
Thank you,
Charly