If you watch any of the original programming on HBO, there's a good chance you've seen the short HBO "Static" introduction [I Googled, & that's what people call it]. And that screen full of static, made to emulate an old B & W TV, is a great example of noise. To some extent it's there in almost all photos, originally digital or scanned. It can be different colors, &/or it can be a mishmash [please excuse the technical term :) ] of what looks like all sorts of colors that at a distance [zoomed out] blend into one color. It's the job of a Denoise app &/or plugin to try & get rid of that noise.
An old trick to get rid of at least some of that noise without added software, IF your image editing app supports layers, is to duplicate the image on a 2nd layer, apply a Gaussian Blur of 10, then merge the 2 layers using the Color mode of blending. DENOISE Projects is MUCH more complicated -- the Pro version more so as it has more settings to fiddle with -- and hopefully does a much better job of it.
Either version, Standard or Pro, works as a stand-a-lone app & as a P/Shop plugin, with the emphasis on Photoshop as that plugin won't work in PaintShop Pro X8 Ult. for example. It almost didn't work in P/Shop either, & the directions in the manual might be wrong -- I copied DENOISEProjectsProfessional_PH7_x64.8be & DENOISEProjectsProfessional_PH7_x64.8bf into a new DENOISE Projects Pro folder in the P/Shop Plug-ins folder.
The Standard version of DENOISE Projects is now available from Ashampoo for $20. The Pro version is available as an upgrade from the std. version for $20 here: projects-software[.]com/denoise/upgrade . The upgrade gets you a download link & a regular key -- like Corel [or at least like Corel has been in the past] they apparently rely on the honor system, not requiring or checking for an earlier or lesser version or key. At $40 [$20 for the std & $20 for the pro] it's cheaper than the [reduced?] price Franzis is selling the pro version for -- projects-software[.]com/denoise-projects-professional . You can find a review here: ephotozine[.]com/article/franzis-denoise-projects-professional-review--29330 .
Franzis has trials of both versions available. The difference between the trial & the download you get when you buy the app is that the trial has a wrapper around the regular setup file that shows you a menu. While the trial setup is running you can copy that slightly smaller setup file from the user Temp folder. That slightly smaller setup file will work with Universal Extractor -- the larger trial setup will not. Why did I bother? There's really not any great reason -- I just get a bit OCD over this sort of thing.
Running the setup file adds another copy of an older Microsoft C/C++ runtime I don't want. That adds a bunch of registry entries [along with several files] that I don't need. And in this case it causes a lot of registry churn -- while *most* of these entries are temporary [won't show up in Regedit, especially after a reboot], there are so many that a plain text file listing them is 162MB! DENOISE Projects [either version] needs (2) registry keys -- one lists the app, along with everything else you have installed from Franzis, & one stores your key.
One last note... When you use Universal Extractor you get many duplicate folders, each holding 4 plugins. When you download the app after buying it you get a .zip file, containing the setup file & a Plug-ins folder -- that Plug-ins folder has several folders with duplicate copies of the plugins. Why so many copies? I've not a clue -- it confused me enough that I tried to figure out the difference, & couldn't.
Why'd I buy it? I have Loads of old 35mm pictures that were shot at night &/or in low light, & once I get them on the PC it takes a while to lessen the noise & film grain [the noise is on the originals], whereas this app does the job faster automatically.