From the beginning, digital SLR users have been frustrated by dust. Those little specks are like blood clots in the digital workflow—they can slow you down or ruin your best work. Sure, you can remove imperfections in Photoshop, but when dust gets on your sensor, you must fix it until the problem is addressed.

You’re better off preparing on the front end, aren’t you? Here are six steps to ensure a dust-free photo shoot:

1. Always keep the body cap or a lens on your camera. Having an SLR camera dangling around your neck without a lens is the No. 1 reason photographers spend hours using the cloning tool or healing brush in Photoshop to remove dust from their images.

2. Don’t mess around when changing lenses. Keep the new lens close by and ready to switch out.

3. Clean your camera bag. Dust in your bag will eventually end up on your SLR, so make sure it’s as clean as you want your images.

4. Check your sensor for dust. Your camera is not airtight. Zooming a lens can create a suction that pulls dust into the camera and onto the sensor. It is inevitable dust will get onto a sensor. Here is how you can check it:

• Attach a telephoto lens or zoom and set it at the longest, most extended, and smallest aperture.
• Manually focus on the closest setting on the lens.
• Using the manual setting, set the exposure to one stop over the normal exposure. Photograph a clear sky, white wall, or white paper. The camera shake will not affect this at all; it will still reveal the specs of dust.
• Ingest to your computer and increase the contrast to the highest — it will help reveal the dust.
• View the image at 100 percent and review the entire image.

5. Use a hand blower to remove the dust. Do not use compressed air, which can damage the sensor or camera. Read your camera manual on locking up the mirror and keeping the shutter open to reveal the sensor. After this step, check your sensor for dust again.

6. Use a brush or swab to remove any remaining specks. If you’re not experienced in cleaning your camera and cannot remove all the dust with a hand blower, you may wish to turn the job over to a professional at this point. But if you want to clean it yourself, you will need special brushes like those at VisibleDust or Copper Hill Images. Using a swab, which uses methanol, is another way to get rid of stubborn dust; you can find one at Photographic Solutions. The methanol will clean the sensor and not leave streaks like water or other products often do.

Following these steps at least every few weeks can avoid the computer cloning and healing that can slow your workflow to a crawl. This will help you focus on the subject, not the speck in your camera’s eye.