1. A method for decoding a bar code image in the presence of noise, the bar code image being a digitized image comprising pixels, each of said pixels having a corresponding digitized bar code image value, said method comprising the steps of: applying a gradient detecting filter to the digitized bar code image values; obtaining a filtered image comprising filtered image pixels, each of the filtered image pixels having a corresponding filtered image pixel value; adaptively binarizing the digitized bar code image value by utilizing said filtered image pixel value to obtain an adaptive threshold.