How much does NoiseXTerminator cost?

$60 from RC Astro for a permanent licence, or $190 for the bundle with BlurXTerminator and StarXTerminator. There is a free trial.

Does NoiseXTerminator work in Photoshop?

Yes. It runs in PixInsight, Photoshop CC or later, Affinity Photo 2.0 or later, and RC Astro's stand-alone command-line tool.

What computer does it need?

A modern CPU with AVX instructions, on Windows 10 (22H2) or later, macOS 12 or later, or Linux for PixInsight and the stand-alone tool. A GPU speeds it up: automatic on a Mac, extra set-up on Windows and Linux.

Are upgrades included?

The licence never expires. Minor releases are free, and so are major versions released within a year of buying; RC Astro may charge for a later major version.

Is there a free alternative?

GraXpert is free and has its own noise reduction, alongside its gradient removal.

What have I not tested on the NoiseXTerminator?

The walk-through ran on a crop of my finished North America Nebula JPEG, which had already been processed, so the before and after differ less than they would on a fresh stack.

NoiseXTerminator review: the second biggest difference

Where does it rank on our leaderboard

Nine of the 16 software on my board, against price
Rank	Software	Stars for Your Buck	Recorded UK price
1	Stellarium	100 out of 100	Free
2	NINA	98 out of 100	Free
4	GraXpert	96 out of 100	Free
6	PHD2	94 out of 100	Free
8	NoiseXTerminator	92 out of 100	£45
11	StarXTerminator	85 out of 100	£45
14	PixInsight	76 out of 100	£258
15	DeepSkyStacker	71 out of 100	Free
16	Adobe Photoshop	67 out of 100	£22

Contents

01 Where does it rank on our leaderboard
02 Specifications and features
03 A walk through NoiseXTerminator
04 In my words
05 Should you buy it?
06 Questions and more about this review

In 30 seconds

Stars for Your Buck 92/100

Reviewed 30 Sep 2026 Updated 2 Oct 2026

Rank: #8 of 16 software
Verdict: Damon's pick

Written by Damon Scotting 3 min read

Buy it if

You want grainy, colourful noise turned into a smooth, clean finish.
You look at your images at full resolution, where the difference is plain to see.
You already use BlurXTerminator and want the next biggest improvement.

Skip it if

You only share your images small and compressed online, where the difference is hard to see.
You would rather not buy another processing tool.

NoiseXTerminator is the tool that makes the second biggest difference to my images, after BlurXTerminator.

RC Astro $60

Specifications and features

Against the processing software I have reviewed

Compare with

NoiseXTerminator reviewed #8 of 16	GraXpert #4 of 16	BlurXTerminator #5 of 16	PixInsight #14 of 16
Recorded UK price	£45	Free	£75	£258
Stars for Your Buck	92/100	96/100	95/100	76/100
Made by	RC Astro	The GraXpert Development Team	RC Astro	Pleiades Astrophoto (Spain)
What it is for	Machine-learning noise reduction for astrophotographs, with separate strengths for brightness and colour noise in fine and coarse detail	Removing gradients and denoising; deconvolution in the 3.1 prerelease only	Machine-learning deconvolution: sharpens stars and nonstellar detail separately and corrects coma, astigmatism, trefoil, defocus, chromatic aberration, motion blur from guiding errors and seeing variation	Processing astrophotographs
Licence	$60, permanent; free trial; bundle of three $190	Free and open source (GPL-3.0)	$100, permanent; free trial; bundle of three $190	€300 outside the EU; 45-day free trial
Runs in	PixInsight 1.8.9-3 or later, Photoshop CC or later, Affinity Photo 2.0 or later, RC Astro stand-alone command-line tool	not recorded	PixInsight 1.8.9-3 or later; RC Astro stand-alone command-line tool. Not Photoshop or Affinity Photo	not recorded
Operating systems	Windows 10 (22H2) or later, macOS 12 or later, Linux (PixInsight and the stand-alone tool)	Windows, macOS (Intel and Apple silicon), Linux	Windows 10 (22H2) or later, macOS 14 or later, Linux	Windows 11, macOS 26 and 15, Linux
Computer	A modern CPU with AVX instructions; GPU acceleration automatic on a Mac, extra set-up on Windows and Linux	not recorded	A modern CPU with AVX instructions; GPU acceleration automatic on a Mac, extra set-up on Windows and Linux	not recorded
Current version	2.6.9 (7 Sep 2026), RC Astro's unified tools	3.0.2 stable; 3.1.0 release candidate 2 prerelease	2.6.9 (7 Sep 2026), RC Astro's unified tools	1.9.4 Lockhart
Version pictured	2.3.3 with AI 3 in my screenshots	not recorded	2.0.4 with AI 4 in my screenshots; 2.0.0 with AI 4 in my video	not recorded

A walk through NoiseXTerminator

Before A crop of my North America Nebula before NoiseXTerminator, at one to one.

After The same crop after one run at the settings shown: the fine grain in the nebulosity is smoother.

The controls Separate strengths for brightness and colour noise, in fine and coarse detail, with the scale between them and the number of passes. Version 2.3.3 with AI 3.

In my words

“After BlurXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator makes the second biggest difference to my images. Online, most of what we share is compressed, and on Instagram or YouTube you can never show the full detail of a 62 megapixel image. But zoom in 400 percent and you can see what it does: the grainy, colourful speckle turns into a smooth, clean finish. Get the strength just right and the result looks fantastic. It is another paid tool, but it is cheaper than BlurXTerminator and almost as valuable.”

From my dictated take

Should you buy it?

92/100 Stars for Your Buck

Pros

It turns grainy, colourful speckle into a smooth, clean finish.
Zoomed right in on a full-resolution image, the difference is obvious.
With the strength set just right, the result looks fantastic.
It costs less than BlurXTerminator.

Cons

It is another tool to buy on top of your processing software.
Its effect is hard to show in the compressed images we share on Instagram or YouTube.

Cheaper than BlurXTerminator, and almost as valuable to my images.

Three alternatives I have reviewed

Questions and more about this review

Reviewed by

Damon Scotting

The Telescope Man Verified

BSc (Hons) Physics with Astrophysics and Cosmology, Loughborough University PGCE / QTS, University of Nottingham

About Damon About Damon Damon Scotting is The Telescope Man. He holds a BSc (Hons) in Physics with Astrophysics and Cosmology from Loughborough University and a PGCE with QTS from the University of Nottingham, and taught physics in secondary schools before becoming an astronomy creator. He is a contributing writer for BBC Sky at Night Magazine and the author of 42 Wonders of Our Night Sky, and his photograph of the galaxy M100 with the dwarf planet Ceres was Highly Commended in the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2024 competition run by Royal Observatory Greenwich. He has appeared on the BBC's Blue Peter. More than 750,000 people follow his astronomy channels on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, and he has reviewed more than 140 telescopes, mounts, cameras, filters and accessories hands-on for this site. More about Damon · How I test · Damon's book

I review all kinds of gear: most of it I buy, some is gifted and some is loaned, and all of it is reviewed the same way. How this site is funded

Six questions, answered

Questions about the NoiseXTerminator

Reviewed 30 September 2026 ·Updated 2 October 2026

I review all kinds of gear. Most of it I buy, some is gifted and some is loaned, and all of it is reviewed the same way: no company sees or approves a review before it is published. How this site is funded

How much does NoiseXTerminator cost? $60 from RC Astro for a permanent licence, or $190 for the bundle with BlurXTerminator and StarXTerminator. There is a free trial. The specifications and the comparison table ↓
Does NoiseXTerminator work in Photoshop? Yes. It runs in PixInsight, Photoshop CC or later, Affinity Photo 2.0 or later, and RC Astro's stand-alone command-line tool. The specifications and the comparison table ↓
What computer does it need? A modern CPU with AVX instructions, on Windows 10 (22H2) or later, macOS 12 or later, or Linux for PixInsight and the stand-alone tool. A GPU speeds it up: automatic on a Mac, extra set-up on Windows and Linux. The specifications and the comparison table ↓
Are upgrades included? The licence never expires. Minor releases are free, and so are major versions released within a year of buying; RC Astro may charge for a later major version. The specifications and the comparison table ↓
Is there a free alternative? GraXpert is free and has its own noise reduction, alongside its gradient removal.
What have I not tested on the NoiseXTerminator? The walk-through ran on a crop of my finished North America Nebula JPEG, which had already been processed, so the before and after differ less than they would on a fresh stack.