Patent ID: 8284271

Claim:
An image noise reduction system comprising: a memory for storing image data, the image data representative of an image of a physical scene and comprising a plurality of pixels; and a computer processor programmed to perform a method comprising: reading a first portion of the image data corresponding to a first plurality of pixels, wherein each pixel in the first plurality of pixels has a color value, and wherein one pixel within the first plurality of pixels is a first center pixel; computing a first value for the first center pixel, wherein the first value is based at least in part on the color value of each pixel in the first plurality of pixels having a color value that differs from the color value of the first center pixel by less than a specified threshold, wherein the specified threshold is determined dynamically for the image based at least in part on metadata of the image, and wherein the metadata comprises gain; transforming the color value of the first center pixel to be equal to the computed first value; and storing the transformed color value of the first center pixel in the memory.