METHOD AND MECHANISM FOR PROCESSING IMAGE DATA

A method and apparatus for processing image data is provided. Color image data is processed to generate gray scale image data, which may comprise a set of data values. Each data value, of the set of data values, may identify a gray scale value.A frequency distribution that indicates a frequency of occurrence of each gray scale value identified by the set of data values is determined. The uniformity of the frequency distribution is determined. A determination of how close the frequency determination corresponds to a predetermined distribution is made. The color image data is classified as a particular type of image data based on (a) whether the frequency determination corresponds to the predetermined distribution by a first threshold, and (b) whether the uniformity of the frequency distribution exceeds a second threshold.