1. A method, comprising: computing a simplified representation of a scene consistent with human observation of the scene, including: applying chromatic transformation to accommodate for different illumination conditions; labeling pixels in the scene into different pixel types; performing adaptive smoothing of said image where the amount of smoothing around each pixel depends on the type of the pixel; determining perceptually significant pixels and perceptually insignificant pixels; and reapplying chromatic transformation to preserve the color appearance to a human observer.