Noise reduction method, apparatus, and program for digital image processing

1. A method of processing a digital image channel to remove noise, comprising the steps of:

a) identifying a pixel of interest;

b) calculating a noise reduced pixel value from a single weighted average of the pixels in a single sparsely sampled local region including the pixel of interest and all pixels that are immediately adjacent to the pixel of interest, the sparsely sampled local region comprising at least first and second pixel regions that are radially oriented with respect to the pixel of interest, wherein at least one of said at least first and second radially oriented pixel regions has both a width and a length of pixels that is different from the length and width of the other of said at least first and second radially oriented pixel regions and wherein all the pixels in said sparsely sampled region are contiguous, and having a denser sampling nearer the pixel of interest, by

i) calculating the absolute differences between the values of the sparsely sampled pixels and the pixel of interest;

ii) comparing the absolute differences with a predetermined threshold value to generate a weighting factor for each of the sparsely sampled pixels;

iii) calculating the noise reduced pixel value as the weighted average value of the sparsely sampled pixels;

c) replacing the original value of the pixel of interest with the noise reduced pixel value;

d) repeating steps (a) through (c) for other pixels in the digital image channel.

2. The processing method claimed in claim 1 , wherein the weighting factor is zero or one.

3. The processing method claimed in claim 2 , wherein the predetermined threshold is twice the standard deviation of an expected noise source.

4. The processing method claimed in claim 1 , wherein the radially oriented pixel regions define horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines of pixels.