I'm in hopes there is a technique whereas I can paint within the black areas to remove the white spec without worrying about going over the edge, as I would with a black paint brush. I tried different brush blending modes (screen,overlay,multiply) didn't do the trick.
Lock the layer transparency
or Filter > Noise > Dust & scratches
or add a levels layer, and drag the black slider all the way to the right
I had previously tried locking the layer transparency as well as levels. Both methods wouldn't completely remove the white specs. The Dust & Scratches was the only thing I didn't try, unfortunately it didn't solve it either
I would think with color range you could select all the highlight white area and delete the white leaving the gray and black area.
