any software out there that does batch dust spot removal?

[ctron]

In astronomy, a "flat frame" is taken before images are acquired, and then software is used to apply the flat frame to the images for the purpose of light correction and dust and dirt spot removal. I have yet to ever see this in anything other than astronomy. In my current set up, my CCD has a lot of dust spots. These were never a problem until I started experimenting with macro and now they have reared their ugly heads and are actually interferring with stacking processes. As with astronomy, I'm wondering if there's any software out there that will auto remove all or most dust spots before stacking them in Zerene and others. All I've come across is BatchCrop so far, but no reviews or indication of what image formats it supports. Any ideas welcome. I know I could create an action in Photoshop using the healing and other brushes on a single image first, then apply to all others in the sequence but I had hoped there was something that would do auto detection and removal. Thanks.

[rjlittlefield]

I don't know anything that does exactly what you'd like.

However, I just now posted the following information to another thread of yours in which this issue came up.

Since you're using Lightroom, I recommend trying its synchronized spot removal capability to clean up the source images before stacking. I have recently found that to be very effective. See the 10X result from un-cleaned source at http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... 694#181694, versus the cleaned results that appear earlier in that thread.

I haven't had time to document exactly what I do, but you can read similar processes at places like http://www.adobepress.com/articles/arti ... ?p=1930487, http://www.thephotovideoguy.ca/blog/lig ... dust-spots, and http://photofocus.com/2014/12/20/remove ... s-at-once/. The main difference is that since I know I'm working with a focus stack whose images are all quite similar, I run the spot removal tool mostly in Auto Sync mode so that each correction is automatically applied to the whole stack. I use out-of-focus frames to find dust spots to start with, adjusting the spot tool's cloning source to be some nearby location that I expect to be of similar depth. Then if those areas also appear in-focus in some frames, I switch to those frames to adjust the source location so that the clone process does not copy inappropriate focused detail. After the spot-removal edits are defined so that they work well for one stack, they can be manually synced to another stack to serve as a starting point. With a different subject, some of the source locations are likely to need moving, but that's simple to do using focused frames with auto-sync to other frames.

--Rik

[soldevilla]

There is a lot of free astronomical software that allow remove the dust from each image before stacking. And in macro use, Helicon Focus have these utility, too.