1. A method for eliminating streaks from consideration in the analysis of whether an electronic representation of a page generated from a scanning system is blank, wherein the method executes on a computer system, wherein the computer system includes a processor coupled to a memory, wherein the memory includes the electronic representation of the page, the method comprising the steps of: predetermining a streak width value and storing the streak width value in the computer system; using the processor to determine the number and connectivity of pixels in the electronic representation and to designate pixels meeting a predetermined connectivity criterion as connected components; using the processor to eliminate the number of connected components smaller in both dimensions than predetermined dimension values; if any of the remaining connected components have a width dimension larger than the predetermined streak width value then using the processor to indicate that the page is not blank else if the number of remaining connected components is not larger than a predetermined allowed number then using the processor to indicate that the page is blank.