How to easily eliminate hot/dead pixels and mazing from M9 images

I made an interesting observation recently about hot pixels and mazing in M9 images. Some time ago I downloaded some M9 files. I forgot where I got them from so I won't even post small portions of them. I know that they weren't posted on PN so I'm playing it safe by not showing them. But, the principle is easy to understand, and I have no doubt that this would work with files from pretty much any digital camera.

I'm using DxO but the tools are the same in all RAW converters.

You might think that the dead pixel removal tool is the best way to remove dead pixels. But, I've found that it's kind of pointless at worst, redundant at best. No, the best way to remove hot pixels and mazing is either using the Noise Reduction tool, the Chromatic Aberration tool, or both.

Here are my settings.

Note that I never use Luminance NR. Anything more than a single digit setting will kill some detail, even in shots taken at base ISO. And at high ISO, Luminance NR is pointless as it will not reveal any detail under all that noise, while making the image look plasticky.

If you don't need NR, don't use it, because it will take extra processing time for no benefit. I always use CA elimination, FWIW. Thankfully, that does not take too much processing power.

Dead pixels and mazing are not as prominent in soft images, but they are still there nonetheless. Note that I have turned on Lens Softness, which dynamically sharpens the image based on lens profiles. It can look artificial when pixel peeping so the best policy is to use a sharp lens to begin with. An old 35mm Summilux is probably not a good choice for a digital sensor.

https://cameraderie.org/threads/leica-m-monochrom.37659/page-37#post-343526

My next project is to convert the code to run under Windows...I wrote this for the M Monochrom, CCD version. It would also work for the M9.

What I found out: "dead" pixels are not dead, they just put a "drag" on the values that get shifted through them- making a "dead' column. Instead of averaging over the dead pixels, I computed the relative shift caused by the bad pixel, and added it back in. with the M Monochrom- it is easy to find neighboring values for the moving average. With the M9 (and M8) Mosaic Filter- the algorithm would have to be adjusted. BUT- the value is to recover the original values of the "bad" pixel, rather than interpolate over them.