Dust and Dirt

[Ed Rooney]

When I keep hearing about dust on sensors and dust causing another QC failure, I wonder what's going on out there? I don't remember ever having a dust problem.

 

But dirt, that's another matter entirely. New York is a dirty city. Okay, all cities are dirty, but NYC . . . the Sanitation Department just can't seem to keep up. 

 

When you blowup your images 100% in PS and look for dust spots to do you also clean up the real dirt? I do. I don't clean up all the trash and dirt and imperfections in my fair city, but I do a lot of spotting. Several times I've shot pictures of Peking ducks hanging in a restaurant window in Chinatown, but I have never had the time or will to spot out all the ugly duck fat stains on the window.

 

How much cleaning do you people do? 

[Colin Utz]

It depends on the picture. A street scene in Manila is different to a scenic beach at sunset, where you forgot to pick up that single plastic bottle in the middle of the frame.

 

I remove f. e. a single cigarette butt on an otherwise clean place, the famous far away bird in a blue sky, fuzzes on clothing, and everything else, what can be mistaken as a dust spot and can be easily stamped out with one click.

 

At f/16 and smaller apertures, I can find 2 or 3 small dust spots. But I seldom go beyond f/11.

[Steve B]

If I thought it was something that could be mistaken as sensor dust I would spend the time and i have been know to get rid of the odd bit of litter which spoils an image.  I once took and picture of my wife holding our black and white cat once and spent about 10 minutes removing the white cat hairs from her black jeans in PP...then thought it would have been quicker to get her to change the  cat hair covered jeans .

[Phil Robinson]

I probably spend too much time as a virtual window cleaner and remover of chewing gum. 

[Trevor Chriss]

I have always been plagued with sensor dust,my current camera has sensor cleaning but the problem still prevails - goes with the territory I guess.

I often clean up rubbish that I missed when shooting, recently 'removed' some of the obvious chewing gum from some street shots. If it shows and spoils the picture, it goes!

[Allan Bell]

For general street photography I leave the rubbish lying around just spot for sensor muck.

 

A landscape scene is different asI will remove the odd interloping item as well.

 

Allan

[John Gaffen]

I spend a lot of time removing sensor dust spots  from my images,  I sometimes use aperture sizes above f16, so all the dust become visible. I'v been told that the use of zoom lenses, makes the dust problem worse, because they move the air about more. I do use zoom lenses all the time, mainly because of their flexibility.  I do remove some litter from my images in Photoshop, particularly were it  may distract the eye.  Yes, I've removed the odd bird,  where it could be mistaken for a dust spot! Just got a camera with a built-in sensor cleaner, so  I hope it might reduce the problem for me a bit. I might also try Canons dust spot recognition/ removal  software in DPP. 

[Ed Rooney]

"I do remove some litter from my images in Photoshop, particularly were it  may distract the eye." - John G

 

Essentially, that's what I do too. I don't want my images to look as if we're in Disney World but I don't want things to look like I'm in Needle Alley either. The overall term I use for what I do is romantic realism. Someone mentioned chewing gum. The streets of NYC are covered with dried-out gum spots. I've lived in London and Oxford and Rome and other places, but I don't recall there being so much gum on the sidewalks. I think I'll call the mayor. He's outlawed large soft drinks, firearms and smoking—why not chewing gum? 

[DickJ]

My D3 is such a dust magnet I ended up purchasing a D7000 as a second body so I wouldn't have to change lenses on the D3.

[Bill Kuta]

Yep, all of the above. Plus, in some images with overhanging branches on some border, I have sometimes eliminated a stray small branch or two that were off by themselves and interrupted the flow of the scene.

[John Mitchell]

Although I'm not a neatnik in real life, I often remove scraps of paper, cigarette butts, and other litter from street shots. Stray branches, wispy antennae, and obtrusive electrical wires regularly get the axe as well. I've even cleaned up people's dirty laundry -- food blobs on T-shirts, etc. On a recent image, I spent ages blotting out hundreds of tiny birds high in the sky for fear that QC would deem them dust. This is what too much time in the sin bin and/or dustbin can do to you. 

[DHill]

Some historian of the future is going to look through Alamy images and come to the conclusion that people were really neat and tidy in the early 21st century, and there was hardly any litter on the streets

[Allan Bell]

Some historian of the future is going to look through Alamy images and come to the conclusion that people were really neat and tidy in the early 21st century, and there was hardly any litter on the streets

 

Nor birds in the sky.

 

Allan

[Bill Allsopp]

 

Some historian of the future is going to look through Alamy images and come to the conclusion that people were really neat and tidy in the early 21st century, and there was hardly any litter on the streets

 

Nor birds in the sky.

 

Allan

Never a bird in my skies unless they are large enough to be a bird at Cr Card size.