A method of calculating a brightness balance value for a digital image including a plurality of pixels, comprising the steps of: calculating a spatial activity measure in a plurality of local neighborhoods of pixels of the digital image, each local neighborhood including a plurality of pixels; generating a weighting factor for each of the local neighborhoods of pixels as a function of the spatial activity of the local neighborhoods of pixels, the weighting factors having more than two possible values; and applying the weighting factors to the pixels of the digital image to produce the brightness balance value.