1. A system for removing a compression artifact of a step contour from an original piece of content having a gradient, the system comprising: an artifact removal unit implemented on a computer system that restores a gradient to a piece of content having a gradient by removing a step contour artifact; the artifact removal unit detects a start of a step contour and an end of a step contour in each row of the piece of content, determines a gradient of the step contour in each row and increments a pixel in certain regions of the row; and the artifact removal unit detects a start of a step contour and an end of a step contour in each column of the piece of content, determines a gradient of the step contour in each column and increments a pixel in certain regions of the column to restore the gradient in the piece of content.