Adjust levels, curves, color balance, brightness and contrast; do this first!
- Isolate the main noisy areas. Because the filters will soften the picture, therefore you need to apply it only on the areas that really need it.
- Use filters for removing noise : in photoshop you can use Dust and scratches, Blur, gaussian blur, despeckle, etc. Don't forget to read the tips with channels first.
- Sharpen - Sharpening is imperative most of the times because the image will become soft if a large amount of noise was initialy included (don't use excessive blur). Use unsharp mask most of the time, as low as possible to avoid reverting back some of the artifacts
- Resize and crop the image for better composition - decreasing the image size will remove some of the artifacts, although some resolution will be lost; if you do it carefuly it's a good compromise; because it will also soften the picture, a low amount of unsharp mask will be required after the image has been decreased
If this is too complicated or you're just not having the time go to Neat Image and choose your camera's profiles from their library
Other similar software programs: