Distraction Removal: Dust (Camera Raw and Lightroom Classic)

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

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. 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:

[Edward1549]

The Beta  does NOT find any dust spots on scanned black and white negatives saved as 16 bit TIFF file, which of course siad egatives have many dust spots. It would be nice if could work even a little bit with scanned negatives. Thanks in advance in this happens.

[Edward1549]

sorry for the typo shoudld be "said negatives". I read the explanation at the top but it would still be a positive feature to have in the future. I mostly use LRC, but always take the scanned negative to PS first via External Editor to clean them up before working on LRC Develop module. 

[Bart5CFA]

Hey, so I work with BW film (a lot) - it aint dececting the dust at all 

[Erik Bloodaxe]

This tool was not designed to do that job. Please refer to the original, topmost post.

[jd999uk]

For some reason, I'm getting a 'Something went wrong' dialogue box, stating it cannot download the Dust removal models.

I've tried downloading manually (via the AI Model Downloads on the More Image Settings) and it never gets past 75% and then fails.

[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.