Reducing the Visibility of Dead Pixels

Occasionally a camera's CCD sensor will have a pixel 'die,' leaving a consistent spot on all footage filmed with the camera. This may show up a pixel locked to a particular color, or it may be only one color channel stuck. After some experimentation, I've found a way to significantly reduce the visibility of a dead pixel.

This technique requires the freeware video editing program VirtualDub and the free MSU Logo Remover plugin. Once you've installed the plugin, open VirtualDub and load the video file (it should work fine to load an entire movie with multiple shots in in most cases, though it might mess with credits and other things done in post) and on the top menu, choose ''video > filter.'' Next, from the list of filters, select "MSU Logo Remover." In order to remove the dead pixel, you have to figure out the coordinates of its location on the video. "Left," for example, is the number of pixels from the left side of the picture that the left side begins, and "Right" is the number of pixels from the left side that the right side ends. The "Top" and "Bottom" are counted beginning from the top of the picture. For the dead pixel on MindGame's camera, I've calculated the coordinates as follows:

Also, the other settings are not the defaults, so carefully copy all of the other settings from this screenshot. These can be adjusted if you wish to experiment, but these settings seemed to work best in my tests. For some reason these processing settings cannot be saved like with built-in plugins, so it is best to take a screenshot of the settings you use so you don't have to remember them next time. To export the result, go to ''File > Save as avi.''

This method does a decent job of reducing noticeability of the dead pixel, and makes it nearly invisible as long as nothing in the picture is passing over it. Click Here to see some test comparison shots from MindGame's "Hypothetical Possibilities." While this isn't a perfect solution, it's much more feasible than cloning out a speck in every frame, and cheaper than buying a new camera.

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