1. A method of noise removal from a digital image comprising providing a three-dimensional surface mapping representation of a at least one image color channel as a surface over a plane of the image, creating a virtual surface patch, placing the surface patch against topography in the three-dimensional surface mapping of the image so that the virtual surface patch intersects topography of the three-dimensional surface with respect to at least some pixels of an image surface region, adjusting height, tilt and curvature of the virtual surface patch with respect to the image surface to fit the surface, then estimating a palliative value for the image surface fitted with the virtual surface patch for at least one pixel within the area of the surface patch from the adjustment of the surface patch, and replacing the value of the at least one pixel in the at least one image color channel with the palliative value.