1. A method of reducing noise in an image comprising the steps of: obtaining a first value for a target pixel; obtaining a respective second value for each neighboring pixel surrounding said target pixel and having the same color as said target pixel; for each neighboring pixel, comparing a difference between said first value and said second value to a threshold value; and replacing said first value with an average value obtained from said first value and at all second values from said neighboring pixels which have an associated difference which is less than or equal to said threshold value based on a result of said comparing step.