Here is my SNR action script for Adobe Photoshop.

The idea is not new, but after all that hassle with third-party filters I decided to make my own..This is what I call smart noise reduction. After editing one of the pictures from my mom’s camera, I decided to make my own script that would save colors of the image and reduce noise to the appropriate level. The thing is that a Photoshop built-in filter cuts a lot of color information in the midtones range. So I separated midtones, shadows and highlights into three different layers. For the highlights and shadows script will apply 100% color noise reduction, for midtones it will do only 21%, so color distortion will be hardly noticeable. In addition to that, it will create a layer masks for each layer, so you will be able to retouch some details of image manually. In order to save original color information during all noise reduction actions script will convert color space into 16-bit, but it will bring it back in the end.

Examples:

1. Original picture. Nothing changed.

2. Photoshop built-in 100% color noise reduction. Notice that lips of the women become grey.

2. Photoshop built-in 21% color noise reduction. Looks pretty good, but noise is still noticeable

3. Smart Noise Reduction script. Colors almost didn't change, but color noise is gone.