A system and method for locating regions in a target image matching a template image with respect to color and pattern information. The template image is characterized with regard to pattern and color. A first-pass search is made using color information from the color characterization of the template image to find color match candidate locations preferably via a hill-climbing technique. For each color match candidate location, a luminance pattern matching search is performed, optionally using a hill-climbing technique, on a region proximal to the location, producing final match regions. For each final match region a hue plane pattern match score may be calculated using pixel samples from the interior of each pattern. A final color match score may be calculated for each final match region. A final score is calculated from luminance pattern match, color match, and possibly hue pattern match, scores, and the scores and sum output.