1. A method for inspecting a surface to identify lithographically significant defects, the method comprising: providing a mask reticle configured to achieve photolithographic transfer of a mask pattern onto a substrate using a high numeric aperture (NA) lithography system having a high image numeric aperture (NA); processing the optical parameters of the high NA lithography system to obtain a plurality of matrix values associated with a high NA correction matrix that characterizes the optical parameters of the high NA lithography system; illuminating a portion of the mask reticle with a magnification inspection tool to produce a patterned illumination beam associated with a lithography pattern formed on the target; filtering the illumination beam with a one or more filters to obtain one or more filtered beams, the filters comprising values associated with the matrix values of the high NA correction matrix, so that filtered beams conform to a model of optical performance of the high NA lithography system; detecting the one or more filtered beams and producing raw image data associated with each filtered beam; and processing the raw image data associated with the filtered beams to obtain a reconstructed image.