Best Method to Fix Dirty Lens Shot
 

One shot was done through a dirty lens. I've tried using a mask, selecting just the bad areas, and using smart smoother along with a very light linear blur. It helps somewhat. Makes the offending areas not so bad.

But does anyone know of another method to deal with this? Any special filters for this or any tips?

Another similar trick if you have area to work with around the offending spot that is the same, is to duplicate the video track and use a mask in the same area as the offending spot. Shift the position of the original track by a slight amount so that hopefully what comes through the mask is identical to the blemish area. You might have to keyframe the mask at some places.

Essentially, you're trying to clone a non blemished area that's the same as the blemished area in content and keep that under the mask throughout the track.

Hope that makes sense.

-gb-

That's a good idea too. Thanks.

Here's another related question. Say I make a mask, keyframe it to insanity, but then I decide I want to change the zoom on the original shot. Doing so messes up the mask, and I can't find a way to change the zoom of the mask. Is there a way to do such a thing or do I have to start all over with my keyframes (I've just been starting over, but it's time intensive)?

Do it in After Effects and pre-comp the layer.

Two ways come to mind:

#1 - Make BOTH tracks Children of a Parent Track and manipulate ZOOM-in/out using Parent Motion to the Parent Track.

#2 - Render out your final and ZOOM away there.

Parent Motion is a fabulous feature of Vegas. There is so much more you can do with it.

What do you mean pre-comp the layer?

Thanks for the help.

Well, if you've got After Effects, and you've never used pre-compose, get ready for a revelation. Basically, this feature will allow you to do what you want - create a mask, apply whatever filters/effects you want to a given layer, do anything else you want to that layer, then when you pre-compose it (and any other simultaneously selected layers), they end up in a new composition, nested in the parent composition you've already been working in. Then, you can scale the pre-composed composition (rather than the layers within it).