1. A method for imaging a scene, said method comprising: encoding electromagnetic energy from the scene in a predetermined way to produce encoded electromagnetic energy; imaging the encoded electromagnetic energy to form an encoded optical image; receiving and capturing said encoded optical image to produce raw electronic image data corresponding to said encoded optical image; decoding said raw electronic image data so that the encoding and the decoding cooperate with one another to produce pre-processed image data representing at least one characteristic that is changed relative to an associated characteristic of said scene, and said pre-processed image data includes, as a byproduct of the cooperation between said encoding and decoding, at least one artifact as compared to said raw electronic image data; and compensating for said artifact by applying a nonlinear post-processing operation to alter a part of the pre-processed image data that contains the artifact while retaining the characteristic in the balance of the pre-processed image data.