(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:

[Geoff79]

Surprised about the latest very positive reviews... makes me wonder what I'm doing wrong. Like a few of the early repliers, I am not having great luck with it. I won't say it does nothing at all, and when it comes to dust removal, any assistance is good assistance. But I'd say it removes 10-20% of dust spots in my experience so far, which still leaves at least 80% for me to clean up manually. And sadly, I have an atrociously dusty sensor. 

[Geoff79]

I wanted to follow this one up with two screen shots, in case it can help the situation. One shows the image before the dust removal, and the other one shows after. As you can see, a handful of spots have been removed, but most were left behind. This is at very least how it is for me every time. If anything, I believe that generally it removes even less than on this one. 

And yes, I am aware my sensor is as bad as it gets. I've tried to clean it myself, and use the blower where and when I can, but can't seem to have any impact. I used to have "a guy" but no one I know of anywhere near where I am exists, so I've had to resign to removing it in post processing, with heavy sadness. 

[consilience8]

Since most dust occurs from scanned negatives, this isn't particularly helpful as a tool. I have never had a dust problem with digital imaages. 

[Brian Buchard]

Unfortunatly it does not work on negative film dust. Maybe the functions is tuned towards sensor dust and not film scans

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

The post at the top of this thread explains that quite clearly, @Brian Buchard 

[Brian Buchard]

Than you @Rikk Flohr: Photography Will wait for an update focusing on scans. As a pretty obvious thing when metioning small white dust particles in focal plane is of course that they are black when scanning positive film . 

[default5lb629282878]

I'm really interested in dust removal for scanned pictures &/or negatives.  It seems unavoidable even with care, and takes a LONG time to remove.