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:

[PalasAtenea]

Lo de quitar manchas... GENIAL¡¡¡ Ahorra un montón de tiempo. 

[chelbertelchen]

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!!!

[ln119]

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]

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

See first post above.

[Antonio_Fortuny3947]

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

[jimtron]

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]

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

[Bruce Richardson]

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.

[Antonio_Fortuny3947]

Després de provar-ho altra vegada, he vist que deixa unes petites marques
on abans eren les taques de polç.

[JLobert]

For curiosity, what do you see when you click on "visualize spots"? See my post below. I believe the algorithm is based on that: outlines around the dust spot, which you may not see as such in a film scan, because your dust spots are not on the sensor, but rather on the original negative. 

[adonuff]

I'm having the same problem with film scans, P/S came up with no dust found? Seems it will not work on scans that have white spots due to dust on the negatives.

[Erik Bloodaxe]

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

[Henning382891875kl5]

That is a pity, it was my great hope!

[John Leseky]

It doesn't work on my black and white negative scans or negatives digitized by taking a picture with a camera and a macro lens. On some it doesn't find any spots at all and on those, while it does visualize spots fine, the "Apply" checkmark is grayed out and it does not provide the tool to mark the spots manually. 

[johnm271253]

Not applicable, and was working fine before on the same material.

Thanks

John M.

[frankb76907269]

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.

[Tone357]

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!

[CR Photo]

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]

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.

[Drugstore]

Tried it but didn't find any of these obvious dust spots. Also no message that nothing could be found.

[Erik Bloodaxe]

This function works only on sensor dust spots (at the moment). Are you sure this is what you have here?

[Marco Basile Images]

Fantastic tool. Maybe change the spot circles to a brighter white or red for better visibility? 

[phudelot]

Outil fantastique.  Quand c'est sur Lightroom, c'est Urgent.

[JLobert]

This is mind blowingly effective and amazing! Kudos for that feature. It detects dust spots that are only visible to the eye when the "visualize spots" feature is cranked up, so this is implemented really well. I also love that it will re-calculate this for each photo when pasted as a sync, because dust spots move as the camera is used. 

Is there an estimate when this will be available to LIghtroom? I would hate to miss out on it there. Thanks!