1. A process comprising: computing a histogram of pixel intensity data collected from a digital image of an optically readable symbol including light and dark elements of varying width; thresholding the histogram, wherein thresholding the histogram comprises: thresholding the histogram to classify individual pixels as light pixels, dark pixels or gray pixels, and thresholding only the portion of the histogram corresponding to gray pixels to re-classify the gray pixels into dark pixels, light pixels or unresolved gray pixels; and heuristically analyzing each string of unresolved gray pixels to determine the elements of the optically readable symbol that created the string of unresolved gray pixels.