Recently, I have been working with HDR images and various software products to merge multiple exposures into one HDR image. One problem is that a lot of Chroma noise gets introduced with these conversions. My SLR/n is notoriously noisy in the shadows before the conversions.

I began thinking about how much of the improvement in the current generation of DSLRs was physics and how much was software. Then I discovered that DCRAW has a "wavelet de-noising" capability - but none of the current generation HDR software using DCRAW as a front-end utilize this feature - or at least they provide no control for it. DCRAW also has a median filter that will also reduce chroma noise.

I think this noise control should be particularly interesting since it works on the linear raw image before applying any tone curve.

I finally found a current binary of DCRAW compiled with a Microsoft C compiler that would run on my Vista 64 platform. Running in batch mode, I found the wavelet de-noising to be quite good at eliminating noise. Perhaps as good as anything else I've seen.   

Have you any experience with this feature in DCRAW.

The other question I have concerns custom white balances. I have SLR/n .ICM files for tone curve, daylight, tungsten, and fluorescent lighting. But DCRAW does not want to accept them. Do you have any magic tricks?