Removing "Blemishes" from Video

Mary_Beth

Hi, all! This is an easy fix with a still photo, but is there any way to remove an obnoxious dust spot from a video? (The culprit is actually inside the lens, and if I can just "erase" it from the video, I'd rather do that than send in the lens...). The Censor Tool helps somewhat by turning a black spot into a gray spot, but I was wondering if there was some kind of "photoshop"-like tool where you could "clone" a nearby, for example, piece of sky to just paste over that spot? Thanks!

borate

It should be possible to crop, position and blur a small, clean portion of the same shot and overlay it atop the flaw. In essence, picture-in-picture. Tracking movement would be the tough part but, dependent upon content, not impossible. Mask tracking is yet another approach.

Upload the clip and someone will take a look. Use a free server, get a shareable (public) link, copy that link and paste it here (or in private via Personal Messenger).

If using Google Drive for upload be sure to change "restricted" to "anyone with link can view."

[deleted]

Provided the "spot" is in a fairly uniform part of the clip and it remains fixed you can cover it with a section adjacent to it...

Place the spotty clip on Track 1
C;lick the FX and then open the Polygon Mask option (Tab at the top of the effectswindow)
Create a mask around the spot and then move it just to the right of the spot or to an area with the same colours as the bit hidden by the spot.
Tick the Mask inside box and set Feathering to zero...(Current version 8.94 leaves a grey area around the mask if fearhering is used)
Click the FX and select Transparency.
Set Opacity to zero. (Slide to the left)
Put the red cursor line over the clip and take a Snapshot of the Sequence Preview window. This should just be the mask on a transparent background. There will be a copy now in the image clip bin
Clear the timeline by deleting the clip with the mask
Replace the spotted clip on Track 1 and the image of the mask above it on Track 2.
Pull the image out so it has the same duration as the clip below.
Add a Position effect to Track 2 and move the mask onto the spot.With dual previews you can easily monitor the result. IIt should now cover the spot and blend in.

Example BEFORE with spot on the sky area..

Here is the image with mask image placed (deliberately) over the spotty clip,and at positioned the bottom so the area masked is visible..

Example after grabbing the mask and using Position to move it over the blemish so it covers "spot"

Spot is virtually invisible.

This procedure works most effectively if the area chosen for the mask is as close as possible in colour and tone to the area covered by the blemish. and if nothing changes a great deal for the duration of the clip like clouds moving which would then reveal the mask as the colours would change.

Nat

Mary_Beth

You know, I think that should work; I'll try it! Sounds labor intensive but is probably one of those tricks that once you get the hang of it, it's easy-peasy. (And your sample spot looks just like mine... 😄

Thanks, Nat!