1. A method for comparing a sample image to a reference image, said sample image and said reference image each having a plurality of pixels, each of said plurality of pixels having at least one color channel value associated therewith, said method comprising: calculating a color channel difference between one or more of the color channel values of one or more of the pixels in the sample image and the corresponding color channel values for the corresponding pixels in the reference image; comparing the calculated color channel difference to a predefined color channel tolerance; statistically combining the calculated color channel differences; comparing the statistically combined color channel differences to a predefined pixel tolerance; defining a pixel status of each of the one or more of the pixels in the sample image as a function of comparing color channel differences to a tolerance and statistically combined color channel differences to a tolerance, said pixel status indicating whether the pixel in the sample image is different from the corresponding pixel in the reference image; and defining an image status of the sample image as a function of calculating a percentage of the pixels with a pixel status indicating that the pixel in the sample image is different from the corresponding pixel in the reference image, said image status indicating the sample image is different from the reference image when the calculated percentage exceeds a pre-defined bitmap difference tolerance between the sample image and the reference image.