hot pixel removal software recommendation please

[alexthornephotography]

<p>Hi folks,<br>

I need a software recommendation for batch processing hot pixels. I just got done shoot a wedding and have many, many candid shots taken in low light that have several annoying hot pixels. I talked to the Canon service rep and he siad that I can either send my 5D Mark II into the service center and they can reprogram it, or try a 3rd party software fix. <br>

So, what do you guys think? Is there a good software program that you can recommend? Should I send my camera to the service center? Should I by a new Mark III (just kidding)? <br>

Thanks for you help!<br>

P.S. I'm using a MAC.</p>

[keith reeder]

<p>Alex, Photoshop (specifically ACR) and Lightroom correct hot/dead pixels automatically, and very effectively, in my experience (<a href="http://lumenatic.com/2011/08/17/hotpixel-removal-in-lightroom/">and that of others, too</a>) - are you using either?</p>

[alexthornephotography]

<p>I'm using Lightroom 3. If you can tell me how to batch process RAW files in Lightroom to fix hot pixels, that would be awesome! </p>

[keith reeder]

<p><em>Hmmmm..</em>.</p>

<p>It should do it completely automatically, Alex - you should simply be able to batch up your job in Lr as normal and the hot pixel fix should just <em>happen</em>. </p>

<p>http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/post/33378528</p>

<p>Is it <em>definitely</em> not working as described in your case? That'd be <em>very</em> strange...</p>

<p>For the future, <a href="http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/post/33376181">this</a> seems to work for most folk:</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>My 5D2 had a stuck pixel as well. However, there is a way to get the camera to remap it. You just switch to manual clean and then wait for 30s. Like magic the stuck pixel disappears.</p>

</blockquote>

<p> </p>

[matthias_meixner2]

<p>I can confirm that on my 60D switching to manual cleaning removed a stuck pixel. It looks like the camera updates its internal bad pixel map in this case.</p>

[alexthornephotography]

<p>Thanks Keith and Matthias. I'm going to try you suggestions. A few questions on the Lightroom fix. Should I be importing the images directly off the camer using Lightroom for it to work? Right now I use the Canon software to download the images and then import into Lightroom. Maybe that's the problem. And, is there a little box some where in the Lightroom settings that I need to click to ensure that the hot pixels are fixed as they import into Lightroom?<br /> Thanks again for all your help.</p>

[keith reeder]

<p>I'm not aware of the method of ingesting files onto a machine making any difference, Alex - I've used all sorts of methods to get my Raws onto my hard drives before importing them into Lr, and I've never, ever seen a single hot pixel in any of the tens of thousands of Lr conversions I've done.</p>

<p>Lr's hot pixel removal is entirely automatic, behind-the-scenes processing that you don't need to tick a box to activate.</p>

<p>Just out of curiosity Alex - are you using sRaw or mRaw at all? Lr isn't very good with hot pixels on those "<em>not very Raw</em>" formats, apparently: <br /> http://forums.adobe.com/message/4657465</p>

[arie_vandervelden1]

<p>Try running a median filter with a small filter size and high threshold.</p>

[keith reeder]

<p>They're not available in Lr, Arie - and should not be necessary anyway if Lr is working the way it's supposed to.</p>

[alexthornephotography]

<p>I always shoot sRAW1 on my 5DII, even for paying gigs. Never thought I needed full resolution RAW files for 99% of what I do. But, I'll take a few test shots in RAW and see if that does the trick. </p>

[keith reeder]

<p>That'll be the problem I reckon, Alex...</p>

[arie_vandervelden1]

<p>Median filters are available in PS and Irfanview (free).</p>

[keith reeder]

Oh yeah I know they're readily available, Arie - I was just trying to keep the discussion Lightroom specific until I could understand why it apparently wasn't working properly for Alex.

[Glenn McCreery]

<p>If none of the easy solutions work Eric Chan has written a Mac software utility to fix defective pixels in raw images. You can read about it at http://people.csail.mit.edu/ericchan/ (about three quarters the way down the page). Fortunately, I have never needed to do this.</p>

[alexthornephotography]

<p>You're awesome Keith! Took some test shots at 3200 ISO in RAW and Lightroom fixed the hot pixels automatically. Thanks again for all your help. </p>

[keith reeder]

<p>Cool - although I didn't actually do much!</p>

<p>Glad to have provided some motivation though.</p>

[philip_ganderton]

<p>Just want to confirm that it's the ACR (Raw converter) part of LR that is doing the hot pixel fix. So any Adobe product which uses ACR (PS, CS, LR) will do this for you automatically. It's so automatic, that it's quite possible that if you use LR exclusively, you'll never know that your camera has any, or many, hot pixels! and you may never care... <br>

If you want to confirm, open the raw file in DPP, and you'll see the hot pixels light up like a Christmas tree!</p>