Recently I have shot some footage during light rain, and though I didn't see it with the camera's viewfinder, on a TV screen a number of shots contain obvious specks of water on the lens. They're only a couple of pixels wide though, so I was wondering if there was software that can remove them, kind of like that software that removes wires in kung fu flicks.

EDIT: anything that works in After Effects would be particularly interesting.

I have never heard of anything at all that would do this. My concern for any automated tool is that it would cause distortion as movement occurred.. You may be SOL, but if you do find something, please let me know.

James

After effects can replace sections of the image with sections that are time-shifted. It is amazing, for example, to see it remove the contrail of an airplane without any obvious distortion.

You can set it up to paste with time and or distance displacement.

To second Mike's reply, I saw an Adobe demo a few weeks ago in which, using the latest version of AE Pro, the presenter removed electrical poles and wires from a clip of a commerial airliner passing overhead. It took literally seconds.

David Hurdon

Three Prong makes a dirt and flicker removal plug in.

http://www.3prong.com/

Drop out and dirt patching. For AVID systems. So you might have to import it if you can get access to one.