I solved my color noise problem.
The company called AKVIS makes a product called Noise Buster, which is a plug-in for Photoshop that removes color noise. The filtering it does is quite flexible, but it has a fully automatic mode as well. Here are a couple of images that provide an example of the results you can get by letting it choose the settings:
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| Before | After |
Take a look at Vicky’s blue shirt and the wall behind her in particular. As you can see, the before shot is filled with random colored dots, while the after shot is completely acceptable (or at least is good enough for me).