A method for balancing areas of varying density within a digital image, and a computer readable storage medium encoded with the method comprise determining a pixel enhanced intensity value by dividing a pixel unequalized intensity value by a pixel mask intensity value, then scaling the dividend by an exposure compensation factor. The unequalized intensity value is from an unequalized digital image recorded by a digital imaging device. The pixel mask intensity value is proportional to the pixel's blurred intensity value. The exposure compensation factor is selectable by the user and is typically selected as the mean blurred intensity of the pixels.