Removing Scan Dust Spots using Adobe Photoshop CS

Ever notice no matter how clean you keep your scanner bed and prints that after scanning there are always tons of small dust specks on your scans?

Well, there is a simple & easy way to eliminate those specks and it does not involve using any of the cloning tools!!

After scanning you would first make any color corrections, cropping or enhancements needed. Before proceeding to the next steps you will want to take a snap shot of your image.

To take a snap shot open the History palette and click on the small camera icon located at the bottom of the palette. This will place a snap shot slate in the history palette of what the image looks like at that time.

Now, locate an area in the image that contains the worst of the spots you want to remove. Zoom into that area to 100% or 200% so that you can easily see the spots.

Now, visit filter>noise>dust & scratches.

The settings you will use with the dust & scratches filter will depended on the severity of the spots and the resolution of the image. Start with both sliders all the way to the left and the Preview checkmarked. Next slide the radius slider to the right until the spots disappear. Notice that the spots disappeared but so did the grain of the image. Next slide the Threshold slider to the right. As you are sliding the threshold slider keep a close eye on the preview. Stop moving the slider when you notice the grain return to the preview. Clicking inside the preview will allow you to easily compare the original grain to what the grain will look like after applying the filter. The goal is to remove the spots but still retain the texture or grain of the image. Once you are happy with the detail click OK to apply the filter. Once the filter has been applied you will probably see that the spots are gone but that the image is now a little fuzzy.

Next open the history palette and take another snap shot. Now undo the dust & scratches filter by pushing ctrl + z (cmd + z) on the keyboard.

Once again in the history palette click on the small box to the left of the last snap shot you created. This sets the source for the history brush which you will be using next.

Select the history brush from the tool bar or hit Y on the keyboard. In the option bar set the blending mode to lighten (to remove dark spots) or darken (to remove light spots). Opacity works best between 90 to 100%.

You will now just paint over the problems areas using the appropriate blending mode to remove the spots. You can use a fairly large brush which will make fast work of removing those pesky spots!!