1. A method of automatically correcting dust artifact within images acquired by a system including a digital camera, comprising: (a) determining that certain pixels correspond to dust artifact regions within a first digitally-acquired image; (b) associating the dust artifact regions with one or more extracted parameters relating to a variable optical system of said digital camera when the first image was acquired; (c) forming an associated statistical dust map including mapped dust regions based on the dust artifact determining and associating operations and known correspondence between effects on dust artifact data of one or more different values of said one or more extracted parameters; and (d) correcting pixels corresponding to correlated dust artifact regions within a second image acquired with said digital camera according to one or more different values of said one or more extracted parameters relating to said variable optical system based on said associated statistical dust map.