Best way to deal with hot pixels?

MackCam

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Mike
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Hi all...

My first post on the forum (other than my "intro" message), so please be gentle! :)

I have a Nikon D40X which I've owned since Jan '08. For reasons I won't bore you with, I haven't used it properly until the recent months, but at last it is in regular service.

Anyway... by chance, while editing one of my pics in GIMP earlier today, I noticed a "hot pixel". As a result, I did the old "lens cap on" photo at low and medium ISO sensitivity settings, and have located a total of 11 pixels which are either white, red, blue or greenish. Of these, only 7 are even reasonably noticeable against a completely black background. Two or three, however, can be seen in a reasonable number of my photographs when there are dark(er) areas at those co-ordinates. I have no way of processing NEF raw files, so I'm working with FINE quality JPG from the camera. In these files, depending on the background, one particular defective pixel (which shows up in RED) can affect 2 or 3 pixels in depth around the central co-ordinate, and is even visible on screen when zoomed out to 50% actual size.

I've made a list of the co-ordinates of the 11 hot, defective and borderline pixels. I'm not too concerned about having to edit files manually in GIMP to check for the impact of these, and edit them accordingly. But I wondered if there's a processing tool that will deal with multiple hot pixels in pre-configured locations in JPG files (I don't yet work in NEF raw).

I could send the camera back under warranty (I recall it has 2 years warranty, being a genuine UK-supplied model), but I hear so many stories of dead and hot pixels being fixed, then a couple of months later, new ones appear. I'm happy to accept that this is just a trait of the technology and instead find the best way of dealing with it in post processing.

Any advice would be very much appreciated!

Thanks in advance, folks.

Mike
 
Hi folks - any tips re this, please? If there's no favourite way of dealing with the problem, could I perhaps ask how others are handling it? Virtually every camera I know has - at some point in its life - a small number of dead / defective / hot pixels... I'd love to know how everyone deals with that.

Thanks in advance!

Mike
 
Is this a Nikon specific problem? Because I've never seen it happen on a Canon, and I've used several, but the two Nikons I've had have both had it...
 
AFAIK they come and go.
But if you're sure they are stable, I'd record a photoshop action and spot heal them out, photoshop would then do it for you with one click. This would rely on you shooting at the same resolution always and running the action before you crop.
 
> Is this a Nikon specific problem? Because I've never seen it happen on a Canon, and I've used several, but the two Nikons I've had have both had it...


No, it's quite common with all manufacturers. In fact, I once ordered a Canon G9 from Amazon and had to repeatedly return the samples I was sent, eventually requesting a refund. The first two had numerous hot pixels on the sensor, while the third had a stuck pixel on the LCD panel itself, as well as a weird blooming glow at certain areas around the edge of the LCD.

Due to the technology, I guess it is bound to happen at some point with any camera. Alas, with the exception of Olympus (or so I've read), defective pixel re-mapping isn't a feature the manufacturers see fit to include in their camera firmware :(

Mike
 
In fact, re Canon, a quick search on the internet seems to show plenty of examples. I think the really high end Canon models do feature pixel re-mapping so that in time, as dead / stuck / hot pixels appear, they can be mapped out...
 
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