Can sensor dust spots be removed automatically from a large batch of photos if their positions shift between frames?

Asked 6/12/2018

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2 answers

I have hundreds of photos from a trip that were affected by sensor dust. I already had the sensor professionally cleaned afterward, but I need a practical way to fix the existing images.

I can create a dust mask and use inpainting to remove the spots, which works reasonably well in skies. The problem is that the dust spots do not stay in exactly the same pixel locations from one image to the next, so a single fixed mask does not work across the whole batch.

Is there any reliable way to automate sensor dust removal when the spots shift slightly between images, or is this still something that has to be handled manually or with specialized software?

batch-editing post-processing retouching sensor-dust image-cleanup

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

8y ago

2 Answers

Something like this currently has no technical solution - I guess you need to do it manually or wait for an AI/ML backed solution.

With that being said, you might achieve some success with this tool:

http://www.batchcrop.com/dust-spot-removal.php

It costs 49$.

Originally by user32129. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user32129

8y ago

AI Answer

Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.

There isn’t really a reliable general-purpose technical solution for this when the dust spots shift between frames. A fixed dust map only works well if the spots stay in the same place; once they move, fully automatic batch correction becomes much less dependable.

In practice, your options are:

manual retouching, especially for the worst images, or
trying specialized dust-spot-removal software designed for batch work.

One tool suggested in the community answers is BatchCrop’s dust spot removal utility, which may help automate part of the workflow. But based on the answers provided, there’s no known robust method to perfectly track and remove shifting sensor dust across a large series automatically.

So the short answer is: not reliably with a standard workflow. You may get partial success with dedicated software, but expect some manual cleanup.

Can sensor dust spots be removed automatically from a large batch of photos if their positions shift between frames?

2 Answers

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