Dust Particles on Pictures

Howie411 · Nov 24, 2007

Ok, these are driving me crazy. Last night I took 30 photographs and about 25 of them had dust particle spots on random locations, I've been trying to clean them up with Photoshop Elements but I'd rather not have them at all. Any ideas?

Muay_Thai_Dan · Nov 24, 2007

what camera do u have?

Josh66 · Nov 24, 2007

Clean your sensor. (And your lenses)

I use the Copper Hill kit. They have a good tutorial on the website as well.

Some people are very paranoid about touching the sensor with anything and will tell you a blower is the only thing you should use. After cleaning my own sensor a few times, I don't really see any risk of damaging anything.

If you don't feel comfortable doing it yourself (it's really not a big deal) just send your camera off and pay someone else to do it for you.

A blower will work sometimes, but it's not as thorough as actually wiping the sensor.

crownlaurel · Nov 24, 2007

Are the dust spots in random locations or in the same locations on every picture? I have 2-3 spots that I am not willing to open my sensor to clean as it could expose it to more dust. I've cleaned my sensor once ( bought a kit online and watched the video and followed instructions to a T) and it is a lot cleaner than it was, so I don't plan to do it again until it gets really bad. I know where to look for the dust and usually just a few taps on the healing brush takes them away. Supposedly Nikon's editing software can do a "dust off" where you take a picture of a white board and it can batch edit to remove the dust spots. Since mine isn't in all photos and it is minor, I don't bother with that.

Howie411 · Nov 24, 2007

It seems pretty random. I have a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX33 and its pretty new like 2 weeks old. So I don't think it can be to dirty.

Josh66 · Nov 24, 2007

OK, seeing what camera you have (I was thinking it was a SLR), it's probably just a few specks on the lens. If that's the case it should be pretty easy to take care of.

If cleaning the lens doesn't fix it I don't know what else to suggest. I think it would be unlikely that it actually is on the sensor (how would it get in there?), and even if it was I don't know how you would clean it.