Feedback | Dust & Scratch Results & Improvements

rberke · May 9, 2025, 12:57pm

I applaud the Photo AI 4.0 beta Dust & Scratches feature. However, it still needs a lot of learning and refinement.

In my trials I can see some dust and scratches (white specs and lines) fixed, some others ignored, and some inappropriately accentuated. The tool within the module to stroke additional spots/lines doesn’t seem to result in additional repairs; my trying is ignored. Example attached (4380x3200 pixels). The interface to submit here seems to have reduced it to 850x620.

rberke · May 9, 2025, 12:14pm

I saw the notification of the new release 4.0. I took a try and downloaded/installed, and it works. I’m pleased that this update/upgrade from 3.6 was available to me. I had only expected dot-releases.

I read about new Dust & Scratches repair needing 8 GB VRAM requirement, but took a try locally anyway with my card which only has 4 GB. Although it ran slowly, it did execute. It didn’t bomb out as the early beta for remove object would.

I can see a little bit of dust and scratch repairs, but even with stroking a few additional spots within the tool I don’t see as much improved as I would expect.

As blurry as my original is, the face and hair improvements are amazingly good. Thanks, TopazLabs!

Ange.topazlabs · May 9, 2025, 6:47pm

@rberke - Thanks, as this is the first release of this tool, make sure to send the original and current results you get, with the list of what you wish the tool would do, to support@topazlabs.com and we can relay to the development team to help make the tool better over time! For this file, I would crop out the white thick edge and solely focus on the picture part, the outside edge would take a lot of manual work to restore, in another program such as Photoshop.

Musterion87 · September 2, 2025, 9:48pm

Hello;
So I am on a M3 Max 30 core GPU running 15.6.1 (24G90). I’m running Photo AI 4.0.3
, I’ve loved the dust and scratches removal - better than photoshop’s neural filter where parts of my image disappear, however I’ve noticed some desires and improvements:
What I like:

Preserves the film grain mostly in my old photos better than photoshop’s neural filter.
Details don’t just go missing.

Feedback:

It leaves patches of noise that can’t be removed with a noise filter.
On big scratches - it blurs them, not removes them.
When I add to the areas to be fixed, it blurs or adds noise so I just skip this and use generative AI healing in Lightroom/Photoshop for best results.
I can’t batch process photos using this. It’d be ideal if I could create a preset, remove the dust and scratches and either select to manually review them before export or just process as is to speedup my workflow.
Silverfast has HDRi with an infrared scan that helps with dust and scratches. What would be nice is if topaz could use this and then use generative AI to fill in the dust and scratches so it’s seamless.
I’ve attached a photo to see what I"m on about. Also I’d be willing to donate some of my old photographic negatives that I’ve scanned to help train the AI better.

I use a Plustek 8300 AI, with Silverfast Studio to scan them. I have the DNG and 64bit HDRi and 48Bit Tiffs at 7200 Dpi.

Thank You

AND-E · September 3, 2025, 8:16am

Hi.

Some good points and suggestions, had you thought about posting this under the Ideas Category I’ll currently place a Vote

Musterion87 · September 4, 2025, 4:51pm

I did, but I couldn’t figure out how to delete my post so I put it under the correct one, but thank you

AND-E · September 4, 2025, 7:15pm

If you wish to delete a post, scroll to the bottom of your post and you’ll see three little dots click on these dots and some options will appear simply click on the Trashcan and your post will be deleted but, if you delete your post by mistake you can always bring it the same way

Hope this helps

Musterion87 · September 8, 2025, 3:24pm

So just wanted to report an error and a potential workaround. I ended up using dust and scratches, but it blurred some buttons on a shirt. I’ve included the before and after. It would be nice if there was an ‘undo’ button ie after the dust and scratch removal, there was a way to select an area and it removes the dust and scratches. I’ve included the logs.
Archive.zip (1.2 MB)

robert.bingham · October 24, 2025, 10:53am

Hello Musterion87

There is a simple workaround for your problem at present, that is in affect an undo button of sorts.

First run Dust and Scratch as per normal. Then disable the Dust and Scratch by clicking on the Eye icon. Then select Preserve Text, Custom and paint in a mask as shown in the picture below. Then re-enable Dust and Scratch and the buttons reappear.

Regards Robert.