It’s a fact of life….if you use a DSLR, no matter how careful you are when changing lenses, sooner or later you are going to get dust on your sensor. No problem, I know how to remove dust spots you say? How about you get back from a road trip, download the images from your cards, find the images of the wind generators in Utah with the beautiful blue sky…….full of spots. Not one or two but 60, 70 or more one each image!!! Aaaaaaghgghhhhhh! And the pictures of the air show – same thing!!!
Many (and I mean many, many) hours later, images are saved thanks to Lightroom’s spot removal tool and Copy Settings functionality.
In the case of spots having the same pattern on multiple images, you can fix one image then use Copy Settings (ctrl + shift + c on a PC) selecting only spot removal to copy the repair and then Paste Settings (ctrl + shift + v on a PC) to paste the repair to the next image or images (yes, you can apply a fix to as many images as you select). Then comes the fun part…..reviewing every image and correcting the “fixes” where object placement in the photos result in spot removal creating little circles of incorrect samples. Like I said, many hours later…….
Best to avoid the problem in the first place… Frequently clean your sensor using the procedures stated in your camera user’s manual – generally, with the camera in sensor cleaning mode and the camera upside down (so any dislodged dust will fall OUT of the camera), GENTLY blow a stream of air across the sensor using a CLEAN squeeze bulb. DO NOT TOUCH OR ALLOW ANYTHING TO TOUCH THE SENSOR! Unless you want an excuse to buy a new camera.
Spots – what spots?
