The best way to clear certain areas on a photograph?

Hi folks,

There are a few ways how I remove spots around a photograph, with the erase tool and as a mask. Are there others ways to do clear the job?
Please tell me... (photoshop 7.0)

Greetz

Laurens

please give more details. what kind of spots. remove as in erase to transparency or clone over so "spots" are no longer there.

first 3 tools that come to mind are clone tool, healing brush and patch tool.

there's also a trick with the dust and scratches filter, snapshot, step back in history, then use the history brush with the snapshot as source to brush out scratches and marks.