Automatic Dirt Removal
In the 'ResolveFX Revival' category of DaVinci Resolve Studio, the Automatic Dirt Removal
plugin uses optical flow technology to target and repair temporally unstable bits of dust, dirt,
hair, tape hits, and other unwanted artifacts that last for one or two-frames and then disappear.
All repairs are made while maintaining structurally consistent detail in the underlying frame,
resulting in a high quality restoration of the image. Fortunately, despite its sophistication, this is
a relatively easy plugin to use. Simply drop the plugin on a shot, and adjust the parameters for
the best results.
(Left) Original image, (Right) Using Automatic Dirt Removal
NOTE
This plugin is less successful with vertical scratches that remain in the
same position for multiple frames, and is completely ineffective for dirt on the
lens which remains for the entire shot.
Here are the controls for the 'automatic dirt removal' plugin.
Main Controls
Motion Estimation Type:
better. This tunes the tradeoff between performance and quality. The 'neighbor frames'
setting lets you choose how many frames to compare when detecting dirt. Choosing
more frames of comparison take longer to process, but usually results in finding more
dirt and artifacts.
Repair Strength:
Lower settings may let small bits through that may or may not be actual dirt, while
higher settings eliminate everything that's found. The 'show repair mask' checkbox
lets you see the dirt and artifacts that are detected by themselves, so you can see the
effectiveness of the results as you fine tune this filter.
Fine Controls
Motion Threshold:
and artifacts. At lower values more dirt may escape correction, but you'll experience
fewer motion artifacts. At higher values, more dirt will be eliminated, but you may
experience more motion artifacts in footage with camera or subject motion.
Edge Ignore:
Exclude hard edges in the picture from being affected by dirt or artifacts
that are removed. Higher values omit more edges from being affected.
Choose from settings such as none, faster, normal, and
Choose how aggressively to repair dirt and artifacts that are found.
The threshold at which pixels in motion are considered to be dirt
Working with Clips in DaVinci Resolve
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