1. A computer-implemented method for compressing a sequence of digitized video images represented as pixels utilizing signal-to-noise improvement layers, the method being implemented in a computer system comprising one or more physical processors, the method comprising: generating at least one processed image layer from at least one of the sequence of digitized video images, each processed image layer comprising a plurality of values representing a coded image layer; and generating a plurality of signal-to-noise layers, each signal-to-noise layer being derived from a corresponding coded image layer, wherein at least one such signal-to-noise layer is targeted to improving the quality of a selected specific feature of the corresponding coded image layer.