A multi-scale detail representation of an image is computed as a weighted sum of translation difference images. A denoising operator is applied to the translation difference images so that translation differences are modified as a function of an estimated local signal-to-noise ratio and at least one denoised center difference image at a specific scale is computed by combining denoised translation difference images at scale s or a finer scale. A denoised image is computed by applying a reconstruction algorithm to the denoised center difference images.