1. A method of forming a gray scale image having a plurality of image pixels, comprising: selecting a neighborhood of image pixels; determining color coordinates, including at least one of image pixel luminance, density and brightness, of the image pixels in the neighborhood; determining a minimum vector and maximum vector for the pixels of the selected neighborhood of the color coordinate which corresponds to one of image pixel luminance, density and brightness; determining a vector average of the maximum and minimum vectors; determining a vector difference between the maximum and minimum vectors; and determining a signed single component pixel using the maximum and minimum vectors, the determined vector average and the determined vector difference; and determining a threshold based on the signed single component gray pixel.