1. A method for prefiltering scanned image pixel data, wherein scanned pixel data is divided into pixel blocks (PIBLS), and steps of the method for prefiltering are applied to the PIBLs, the method of prefiltering a given one of the PIBLs comprising the steps of: computing a texture value for each row of the given PIBL and storing results in a first array (xTexture); computing a texture value for each column of the given PIBL and storing the results in a second array (yTexture); selecting a row filter for each row of the given PIBL based on the texture value results in the first array (xTexture); filtering the pixels of each of the rows with the corresponding selected row filter; selecting a column filter for each column of the given PIBL based on the texture value results in the second array (yTexture); and filtering the pixels of each of the columns with the corresponding selected column filter.