1. A method of distinguishing glyphs from non-glyph image artifacts in an input image, said method comprising: providing a data processing device to implement the following steps: defining a connectedness threshold, said connectedness threshold being a numeric value between a pre-specified numeric range; defining a numeric effort value, said effort value specifying a fixed number of repetitions; assigning foreground pixels of said input image a first connectedness value and assigning non-foreground pixels of said input image a second connectedness value; iterating steps (a) through (d), until the number of iterations matches said effort value, wherein each iteration has a corresponding and predefined scanning pattern and bit mask, said bit mask designating a center pixel location and designating neighboring pixel locations to be considered in the following steps; (a) identifying the bit scanning pattern and bit mask corresponding to the current iteration; (b) scanning for processing pixels of the current input image following said scanning pattern, and for each scanned pixel: overlaying the identified mask onto the current scanned pixel, with the current scanned pixel at the designated center pixel location of the identified mask, and assigning the current scanned pixel a center pixel connectedness measure according to the following relation: center pixel connected measure=the smaller of [(the highest connectedness value of the pixels at the designated neighboring pixel locations of the identified mask)+1] or [the input connectedness threshold]; (c) IF the number of the current iteration does not match the effort value, THEN updating the connectedness measure of each pixel in the current input image according to the following relation, IF (connected measure of pixel>0) AND (connected measure of pixel<the connectedness threshold), THEN (set connected measure of pixel=1), ELSE (leave the connectedness measure of pixel unchanged); (d) IF the number of the current iteration matches the effort value, THEN do the following for every pixel having a connectedness measure>0: IF (connected measure of pixel≧connectedness threshold), THEN mark pixel as a non-glyph image artifact pixel, ELSE mark pixel as to a glyph pixel.