Quickly remove dust spots with Luminar Neo

No matter how fastidious you are about cleaning your camera and lens, dust spots happen. Fixing them isn’t usually hard, but it can be time-consuming (and not terribly fun). Skylum Software aims to address this common issue in Luminar Neo with its AI-based Remove Dust Spots tool.

Remove dust spots with one click

Thanks to an early build, I had the opportunity to put the new Remove Dust Spots tool to the test. Here is the image I chose:

Full disclosure — those are not dust spots. They are BUGS! When I set up this shot I didn’t realize that this field was swarming with flying insects. All I saw was the composition of the schoolhouse and Hearst Castle on the mountain behind it.

I was excited about my shot until I got back to my computer and zoomed in. I could have spent time with a Photoshop brush, erasing them one-by-one, but instead, this photo was relegated to the archives for a few years because I didn’t want to spend time fixing it.

Luminar Neo was the perfect excuse to dig out this photo and see what the new Remove Dust Spots tool could do. I opened the Erase tool and clicked the Remove Dust Spots button. The result was satisfying. With a single click, the AI recognized the spots and removed about 98% of them. Huge timesaver!

NOTE: The screenshots in this article were captured with an early build of Luminar Neo. The interface is not yet complete is subject to change. While this version only has two tools, the official release will include a full creative image editing toolset.

Refining the results

With most of the spots gone, it was a quick task to grab the Erase brush and manually erase the rest.

In the past, cleaning up a photo like this would have taken at least 10-20 minutes. With Luminar Neo it took about 90 seconds — a vast improvement in the efficiency of my workflow.

Luminar Neo’s AI technology made cleaning up this image fast and easy, allowing me to put more time and energy into being creative behind the camera and the computer.