1. A method comprising: performing an edge detection operation on a first image to obtain a second image; identifying particular edges of the second image that exhibit at least a specified reliability, comprising: applying an edge segmentation operation to the second image to identify a plurality of distinct edge segments; defining edge segment vicinities for the respective edge segments; utilizing the first image and the edge segment vicinities to obtain level statistics for the edge segments; and generating an accept or discard decision for each of the edge segments based on the level statistics and a specified threshold value; and generating a third image comprising the particular edges and excluding other edges of the second image; wherein said performing, identifying and generating are implemented in at least one processing device comprising a processor coupled to a memory.