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|6 months ago
July 10, 2025
157 replies
17159 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:

J

JamesGrayPh

Participating Frequently

The dust removal is not working at all on scanned slide. Many small specs in the sky. Clicking on each one works, but there are a jillian of them. It would take ages.

A

Alice36182411d4vg

Participant

It did not remove dead pixels.

H

HeronM

Participant

It barely worked for me when I tested it on .dng and .tif files from scanning/reversing film negatives with a DSLR. Sometimes it didn't detect anything (see attached). There should be a way to adjust the tool so more dust is detected. Selecting undected dust in LR doesn't save any time for me over Spot Healing Brush in PS.

Erik Bloodaxe

Legend

That is because this tool is designed to remove sensor dust spots. It says at the outset, in the topmost post:

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

W

waltoncreative

Inspiring

I don't understand how this clunky interface is helpful. Yes when the dust extraction is turned on it manages to find most of the dust. BUT then when you want to retouch something else you have to TURN OFF the dust extraction to enable the normal retouching menu. Surely there must be a better way to make this feature work so it is possible to retouch BOTH at the same time?

A

amgreen

Participant

Dust removal much better. I used it on a 2013 digital image and it removed all the dust spots.

Karlchinnappa

Inspiring

Dust removal simply doesnt work !

Removes nothing even on very obviously dust spotted images.

Using Nov 2025 release of LrC and Ps

12Gb Vid RAm

32Gb RAM

AI features enabled

Erik Bloodaxe

Legend

Sensor dust?

W

wwwanderer

Participant

Excellent Useful.

B

Ben W. @byfieldpitman

Participant

When copying or Syncing the 'Dust' Removal to another image, I think the default option should be for all of the dust spots that were detected in the source image to be copied onto the following image. Maybe there could be an option to toggle 're-assess dust' or somethign like that, if that's what the photographer wants to happen, but I think this feature is far more powerful if it'd allow the photographer to take a picture of a white wall or the sky, with the same aperture setting, and then 'assess the dust' in the image that's just one, light, homogenous-coloured image, and then copy the dust spots positions to the real image. In my testing, the tool finds all the dust perfectly, if it's a shot of the sky or a wall, so it could be a hugely powerful workflow for landscape photographers, or anyone who regularily shoots at f/11 or f/16 or f/22 (and has dust on their camera's sensor!) to simply take a shot of the sky or a wall, and then use that shot to clean the dust off of their 'real' shots!

B

Ben W. @byfieldpitman

Participant

R

RMcC341

Participant

Works like a charm. Thank you.

R

Richard10640

Participant

This is definitely going in the right direction but for my application particularly underwater backscatter removal this tool doesn't really do the job. See the example I added where sediment or many small particles show up as a cloud in front of me. The tool doesn't really pick up on the small spots. I do like how it does larger spots so this has great promise. You of course know that there is a product (specifically for underwater backscatter) that does this but I hope Lightroom gets most of the way there included in my package. Well done for implementing this.

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