Tech: Noise Reduction and Nighttime Photography

The last couple of hours I've been playing with faux-HDR techniques in hopes of coming up with a good faux-HDR of my photo that I posted last night. I've come up with a very in-your-face version of that photo, or one of the ones in that same set. Two layers, one bright, and one with a lot of shadows and contrast. The only part of the contrasted layer that is showing is the part of the capitol that you can see. Once I get a remote trigger, I plan on going back out there and playing with true HDR photography.


However, I've spent the bulk of my time trying to figure out noise filters. I've run a noise filter on this image twice and I am upset with the amount of noise in the sky, particularly the red portions of the sky. The water is just gorgeous, but the sky shows so much noise, and I have no idea what to do. Is it the noise filter itself? Should I invest in a program like Noiseware? Despite the problems with noise, which I hope to iron out in the near future, here we have my faux-HDR image of the capitol, from this morning at 12:30am. Enjoy!

"Midnight Capitol Across Monona Bay (Redux)"