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 & 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:

[CMass]

Hey! Right now i believe it only applies to lens and sensor dust. Please see Rikk's note in the orginal post: 

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. 

^CM

[ilankelson]

In the image i posted the dust is part of the image and is floating on the water. I thought câmera raw could treat it as dust from the sensor.

[ilankelson]

Thanks for your reply. Understood now.

[Leica22587]

I noticed that dust removal does not work at all with photos that are scanned from analog film. It's great in spotting sensor dust but somehow it does not recognized negative dust at all.

[Erik Bloodaxe]

It was designed as a tool to remove sensor dust only and that was clearly stated at the outset. See the very topmost post.

[anish_1972]

Absolutely weel thought out addition. Works wonders. Is a great time saver. What used to take somewhere between 1-2 hours and a lot of eye-ache, is now happening within seconds.  

[stockshooter.com]

Very good, saves alot of time. Needed it 20 years ago though!

[highAFphotos]

Please allow us to apply the same exact dust removal settings to all images. It seems that it attempts to re-evaluate each picture instead of just copying and pasting the manual dust removals.

[glamorous_youth7937]

For some reason, I can't sync the dust spot removal across pictures. It forces me to do it again, even if the pictures have been taken one after the other on a tripod, so I know that the spots are in the same place across all images.  

[Wynter232747948gc7]

Please add support for scanned photos/film. I was really hoping this would help me with the 1200-odd scans I have to remove dust from. Or at LEAST let us manually use the tool if it doesn't detect things itself. 

[larry0D4D]

One of the best things to happen to PS & ACR in ages! I wish I had this years ago! Saves a lot of time and efforrt especially as I get older and the dust is more difficult to see.

[FrankMazz]

Just a first impression. I saw the note to "apply additional spots" which helped a lot. But the more I used it, the more it had the look and feel of the Remove/Heal tools. So, I naturally tried to click and drag, which doesn't work, of course this is intended for spots. I suggest click-and-drag be added for consistency of use with the other tools.