A method of processing the contents of an image which are digitized and formatted into macro blocks (MB) of information. The method involves flagging for further use those macro blocks whose contents satisfy a first criteria. Further processing of the method is performed only using the status of each macro block, either flagged or unflagged, and ignoring the contents. Unflagged blocks adjacent flagged blocks are investigated using a testing protocol and using a second criteria to determine if they should also be flagged. The status of an unflagged block meeting the second criteria is changed from unflagged ("O") to flagged ("1"). The method converts unflagged orphan macro blocks which should have been identified using the first criteria into flagged macro blocks. These are combined with the original set of flagged macro blocks to determine the entire set of macro blocks whose contents are to be used in subsequent processing.