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
20615 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

Tone357

Participant

It doesn't work at all for me. When I hit reply, the box that shows it working appears for less than a second and is gone. I also get a message that says., No dust was found, when the photo is full of dust!

C

CR Photo

Participating Frequently

I confirmed the feature works well with the kind of dirt you see on digital camera sensors. The kind of dirt you are talking about on scanned negatives and positives is very dfiferent. Unfortunately this new feature will not work for us film photographers. They will need to train their AI model on film scans or make an entirely different model. I'm not sure Adobe will ever spend the money to do that, but I certainly hope they do.

johnm271253

Participating Frequently

This tool was working absolutely fine before, for some years, on the same
material.

I have looked at these comments when posting my problem.

Thanks

John

John M.

F

frankb76907269

Participating Frequently

This new feature is a great idea. However, in nighttime photos, it only detects some of the spots and sometimes uses poor repair. But the feature has great potential!
Such a feature would also be great for hot pixels and white stuck pixels caused by camera sensors.

J

jimtron

Inspiring

I tried dust removal just now on a b&w negative, raw file shot with mirrorless camera. I opened the file via LR, so it would have my adjustment to positive, and then in PS went to Camera Raw. I enabled dust distraction removal, and got "no dust spots were found in this photo," despite some obvious dust, see screenshot.

I wonder if this is mainly/only intended for sensor dust, or potentially also for film scans?

Rikk Flohr_Photography

Author

Please see the note on Scanned Negatives in the top post. @jimtron

Rikk Flohr: Adobe Photography Org

B

Bruce Richardson

Participant

I'm just replying to this post since you are an Adobe employee. When you click "report" from the app, you are not exposed to the caveat.

A

Antonio_Fortuny3947

Participant

És fantàstic- Tèstalvia un munt de feina. M'agrada molt!

ln119

Inspiring

Remove Dust work fine. Can we have a kind of preview as in Refelections and the possibilitie to Undo some spots removal.
Thanks.

Erik Bloodaxe

Legend

"For refinement, you can select one or multiple spots to delete or refresh."

See first post above.

chelbertelchen

Participating Frequently

I used it now the whole morning and afternoon because I had to work on many pictures of a friend and his dirty lens... 😄
It is absolutely faboulus so far! THANK YOU!!!