AI/Plug-in's/Advanced Methods for Dust Cleanup on Products?

[J.C.C.1]

Hello everyone,

I'm looking for recommendations on Photoshop Plug-Ins, Neural Filters, or AI software that can automatically remove dust from product images. I don't need to clean sensor dust, just the dust on the products like the one shown in the attached image.

I was considering trying Retouch4me, but it seems their website is currently down, and their tool is more portrait/skin based than product-based. As I work on hundreds of images per week, this is a time-consuming task, and I'm hoping to find a more efficient solution.

I've experimented with various combinations of D&S filters, High Pass Filters, Median Stack Mode, Darken Blend Mode, and Find Edges filters. While I've come close to success, I haven't found anything that works perfectly. 

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

Hi @J.C.C.1 you could try using the Neural Filter JPEG Artifacts Removal - its kind of a hack, but I've had good success cleaning up minute specs in my images using it.

[J.C.C.1]

Hey! I ended up testing this on the Low, Med, and High Setting. 

Here it is on High,

This could probably work on other images, but no luck here. Thanks for the reccomendation, I will test it on some other images. 

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

A bit of effort but it could be a recorded action - I took your image and replicated the layer.

I then ran the Median filter to get this:

and then set the layer to darken - any white specs get filled in with the overlying color.

[J.C.C.1]

Yeah that's kind of where I am at now with an action I use, but I think I will need to script parts of it where it pastes the layer contents to another layers mask. Action panel is having issues with this.

Select "LAYERNAME"
Duplicate 
Rename "Dust"
Run Median Noise Filter
Duplicate
Run Find Edges
Desat
Select Canvas
Copy
Select Dust Layer
Create layer mask
Paste in Place the contents of the Layer that was copied
Delete the find edges layer 
Set the Dust layer to Lighten or Darken Depedning on Dust Luminosity

I was originally doing this with D&S, but median is working much better. Thanks!
BEFORE

AFTER
Here is a before and after of the action with a solar curve to show dust a little better.

[Kim5CAE]

Have you tried LaserSoft Imaging's SRDx plug-in? 

[J.C.C.1]

I have not tried this one yet! I will give it a shot. It looks promising. For now I have just been using a layer with median noise filter, and then adding back in the noise so it matches the original image. Then brushing it in. 

In terms of selecting the dust/scratches, does anyone have a good reccomendation for this? I have done some testing with Color Range, Find Edges, and using a High Pass filter.

Method used below

Duplicate Layer

Rename Duplicate "DUST" 
Run a Maximum filter

Run a high Pass

Apply a Threshhold Adjustmen

Copy Canvas
Select Original Layer
Duplicate Layer

Create a blank layer mask
Apply Clipboard to Dust Layer Mask

Select the layer and Run a median filter

Here is a before and after or where I am at now.

[mrshoffu]

Thank you so much for listing this out!  I recreated it and am testing it on a bunch of images.  I liked the Retouch4me dust filter, but it honestly took a little too long and this seems to have done the trick.  I really appreciate your taking the time to write it out with screenshots!  also had to look up how to copy> apply that directly to a layer mask, so def learned some stuff today.https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwj78rDcueeDA...

[manofiron07]

use the dust and spec filter under noise really helps

[NetPixel]

The same here, I am desperatley looking for a dust remover plug-in.

Thank you!