The teachings provided herein disclose a method for corner sharpening in the display of a bitmapped digital image. The method includes the steps of selecting a target pixel location within the digital image; observing a set of pixels within a pixel observation window superimposed on the digital image relative to the target pixel location; generating edge-state codes for a plurality of pairs of neighboring vectors of pixels within the pixel observation window; generating corner-identification codes from the plurality of edge-state codes using at least one look-up table so as to thereby identify corner pixels; and, assigning a pixel value in an output image plane in a location corresponding to the target pixel in the input image, such that assigned value extends a corner where indicated by a corner identification code, thereby producing a sharpening effect. The method may be used for improving the print quality of line-art corners and other fine details as found in both font and image data.