I haven't tried it yet, but thought I'd pass it along:

Polaroid Dust & Scratch Removal Software is a standalone Windows application or Adobe Photoshop® plug-in filter application allowing you to selectively remove dust and scratches from a digital image. This software utility is an easy to use application that detects defects and cleans the image while retaining and preserving the original image integrity. Works on TIFF, JPEG, or BMP

http://www.polaroid.com/service/software/poladsr/poladsr.html

I tried it. It automatically puts itself in the filters menu of any Photoshop ver 5 and up. It gives you alot of control and doesn't blur the image. You can choose light or dark dust and there are several slider controls and a preview window. Best of all, it really works!! It blows Photoshops version of D & S out of the water. It's late now but I will try to post some examples tomorrow. Thanks for the cool link Doug. I can see alot of future use with this filter. It's free guys so it's definately worth the effort to grab it before it no longer is free. I does not work on PSD but it does work on jpg, bmp and tif files so you will have to plan for it and make it your first move before saving in PSD format. But hey, it works, what can I say. :)
DJ

I can't wait to try this out Doug. Thanks for posting it!
Jeanie

Doug
Thank you very much for the link!
I'm downloading it now....I'll let you know ;)

excellent find Doug! I'm downloading it too.

- David :)

Correction
After reading the Read Me file on the filter, I was lead to believe it only worked on BMP, JPG or TIFF files. So I tried it on a PSD file and I find it works just as well. Just thought I would correct that first statement.
DJ

I discovered this utility from a newsgroup recommendation and was on my way over here to post a rec when I noticed that Doug beat me to it!

It won't work on EVERYthing, and in particular it may have trouble with some of the low-contrast monochromatic 19th-century images we all end up with from time to time. But for color JPGs at least, it ROCKS. I could not do anywhere near as good a job with a full version of Photoshop and several hours as this tool does in seconds.

The combination of this FREE utility and the Epson Perfection 2450 makes me feel like a bloody professional. :)

BTW, the standalone utility only works with JPG, TIF, and BMP---the plug-in works with anything that you can load into Photoshop, because all images are converted to PSD while Photoshop works on them.

Hope everyone is well, I've been busy and haven't been around for a while.

David, is it my imagination or do you keep getting younger-looking? What's your secret?
:wavey:

Thanks for clarifying that Kaulike. That makes sense.

Yeah you got to watch Doug. He's fast. You would think with all the work this site requires he wouldn't have time to surf the net for all these goodies but he finds them. :D

Hey, nice to see you back. :)
DJ

Thanks a ton for the link. If anyone wants an image to try it out on, here's one for you. I didn't try it yet, but it looks like it might be a good one for that.

Ed

Ed
Thanks for the image. Here's what I did. I ran the filter in the default mode for dark specks and noticed it affected the eyes, lips and such. After I ran the filter I used the history brush set to the snapshot and painted back the eyes, ears, fingers, noses and lips. I then created a snapshot at that state and ran the filter a second time and again followed the procedure with the history brush set to the newest snapshot state. As you can see, alot of the specks were illiminated with little or no blurring.
DJ

Is she wearing a candle in her hat? :)

:lol: I didn't know what that was but I was only dealing with black specks so I didn't worry about it.
I guess she's the guiding light in the family. :D
DJ

Just noticed that there is now a classic mac and os x version available!

http://www.polaroid.com/service/software/poladsr/poladsr.html

Stephen Marsh.

Stephen,

Thanks for posting this. I have friends with Macs who wanted to try this before but could not. I'll let them know right away.