hmm... this is from a negative? Need to know the whole process! I'm guessing you are scanning with some sort of "negative" mode in the scanner? I'd not be concerned about "noise" yet. The scanning software, likely has a way to adjust "white point" and "blackpoint"? This may be automatic, or it may have little eyedropper thingies. Perhaps it displays a histogram of levels? Basically what you want to do initially is adjust the black point and white point to get as many different levels as possible, without them bunching up at completely white or completely black. [Don't be TOO concerned if the raw scan looks bad; as long as you catch as many different levels as possible you can adjust things in photoshop.] We'll then think about using "curves." [Multiple pass scanning to reduce CCD noise will be one of the last things you want to do. BTW, this type of noise shows up in the darkest areas scanned, not the lightest. So, if you are scanning a negative, this would be noise in the fire, not in the shadows!. Lets' get the blackpoint and whitepoint set first...]