In one embodiment, a method of processing image data for compression is provided, wherein the image data represents an image and includes a plurality of image data values, each image data value representing an appearance characteristic of a pixel of the image. In one embodiment, the method includes determining a variance between n image data values, comparing the variance to a variance threshold to determine whether the variance meets a preselected condition relative to the variance threshold, and if the variance meets the preselected condition, then changing at least one of the n image data values to reduce the variance.