A method of removing noise from a color digital image, including receiving an original color digital image including a plurality of pixels represented in a primary-color space; producing at least one residual digital image and at least one base digital image from the original color digital image, the base digital image having a lower spatial resolution then the original color digital image; producing a noise reduced base digital image by removing noise from the residual image and the base digital image with a noise reduction filter and combining the noise reduced base digital image with the noise reduced residual image to produce a reconstructed digital image having reduced noise; transforming the reconstructed digital image into a luminance-chrominance color space; repeating the above process to produce a reconstructed luminance-chrominance digital image; and transforming the reconstructed luminance-chrominance digital image into a noise reduced digital image in the original primary color space.