Overview
The Dust Removal Tool, introduced in Capture One 23 (16.2), is located in the Refine Tool Tab. It enables one-click removal of dust and spots from photos. Additionally, utilize the AI-driven automatic Remove Dust option alongside the Remove Dust and Remove Spot Cursor Tools.
This article contains the following section:
Remove Dust (AI-driven)
Click the Remove Dust button (Opt/Alt + O) to initiate an AI analysis on your image and automatically identify areas impacted by dust spots:
Automatically removing dust works both on individual images and batches.
You can see which areas of the image are affected by selecting the Remove Dust or Remove Spot Cursor Tools, found in the Toolbar:
You can also use these cursor tools to manually remove spots by clicking on the affected areas and pressing the Backspace key.
Note: Due to the specifics of the auto-detection mechanism, the best results can be achieved working with a RAW file rather than with a processed one, e.g. TIFF or JPEG.
Remove Dust and Remove Spot Cursor Tools
The Remove Dust (O) and Remove Spot (O) are now distinct Cursor Tools instead of a shared tool:
Removing dust might leave a visible trace in some images.
You can change the size of the spot removal by clicking and dragging on the affected area:
Comments
21 comments
Agree with above note.
I tested on a number of images. It sometimes leaves a trace of the spot or dust.
Will it also work on scanned filmphotos? seems to do the work only on "dark" dust spots not on white dust spots after inverting a negative filmphoto.
is there a plan to put some kind of AI dust removal for scanned filmphotos in it?
I’m confused by this paragraph in the article.
‘The dust and spot have been split into two separate cursor tools instead of a shared tool. The new feature will be launched in a beta mode as we are still working on improving the image quality.
Removing dust might leave a visible trace in some images.
You can change the size of the spot removal by clicking and dragging on the affected area’
Auto dust removal has replaced the dust and spot removal tool. Yet this seems to imply they both still exist and both are, in fact, available from drop down menu. However the action button only says remove dust whether spot or dust is chosen.
Yet in paragraph I quoted both dust and spot tool are mentioned as if they are still separate tools ?
sven weber
It didn’t work at all on a few scanned negatives I tried it with
Michael Parker They're available as cursor tools from the Toolbar, but not as Tools themselves. This is so you can remove additional spots, in addition to what the Dust Removal (BETA) tool recommends.
Have I understood you correctly? I of course want this to be as clear as possible for yourself and other users.
Jack-W
My understanding now is the the spot removal and dust removal tools are still available from the toolbar.
The beta dust removal tool which has a drop down to select either dust or spot is automatic and it doesn’t matter if dust or spot is chosen for the auto detection and fixing ?
Michael Parker The automatic functionality is intended for dust spots. Other "spots" could be anything, such as a star in a night sky – so the automatic functionality only applies to dust removal.
When changing to "Remove Spot" this is where you can manually remove spots/dusts. Keep this set to "Remove Dust" to ensure the automatic detection of dust in your images.
Jack-W
Thank you for the clarification
Michael Parker You are most welcome.
it is just not working! in blue skyes it leaves white spots everywhere, no matter you do it automatic or manually. please leave the fashionable ai out of the game until it really works (or at least make the old way accessible as a work around). i'll go back to version 15.
This tool is not working at all for me. It can't find dust or spots. (I am running the 30 day trial version 16.2.3.1471)
The healing tool is what should be automated. It is much smarter in covering up dust or spots.
Please perfect the dust spot removal based on a film scan. This would drastically save time for film photographers. I would use Capture One so much more often if a tool for film dust was fast and easy.
automatic dust removal has NEVER worked since first released for me. I loaded C1 16..3.3.8 a couple of weeks ago and guest removal is still inoperable. I even sent my problem file to support group (at their request to "train" the AI used for this tool. Nothing gets removed Using 16.3.3.6..It seems the AI UNDERNEATH THE DUST REMOVAL IS UNTRAINABL. WHY DOESNT Capture One test the tool's functionslity before the releasing the program to the world.
Seems to work pretty well for me. It does all
The “heavy lifting” still needs the once over afterwards though.
I wonder if it works better with some raw files than others. I use Fuji raf and Canon Cr2 files and it works really well, even finding dust spots I miss by eye.
Jack-W
I find the description above a little confusing. The tool itself appears to treat dust and spots as two separate things ("Remove Dust" / "Remove Spots"), but there are a number of references to "dust spots" in the description above.
Until Kevin Robbins pointed out how the tool works in a comment here, I thought that the "Remove Dust" / "Remove Spots" options in the drop-down menu affected the way the "Remove Dust" button worked (hence the request he commented on).
In one of your comments above, you write:
The last part here sounds as if you can only use the tool manually if it's set to "Remove Spots", and that auto detection is turned off with this setting. But the "Remove Dust" button still appears to work when "Remove Spots" is selected in the drop-down menu, and manual removal of dust still appears to work when you select "Remove Dust". How is this to be understood?
Another thing I find unclear is whether there's any difference between using the "Remove Dust" button and the tool's magic wand button. Do they make the same adjustments?
And one last thing. In the description above, it says "You can also use this cursor tool to manually remove dust spots by clicking on the affected areas and pressing the Backspace key" – this sounds as if you need to both click on a spot/fleck of dust and press the Backspace key in order to remove the dust/spot, which doesn't appear to be the case.
How do you delete a O that you have already applied to your image where it doesn't work well? You used to be able to do this in the previous version of this tool.
Naomi Finlay
You should be able to select the O and the press delete.
I have tried that but unfortunately all it does is delete the image itself not remove the O
That's strange. Here it works.
So strange as I went back to test it again and now it's working. Not sure if there was some type of glitch with that session! Thanks Thomas.
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