In an input scanning system, as would be present in a digital copier, a "template" of similar visual elements or objects, such as logos and other designs, is detected among a series of scanned images. The common objects form a reference image against which subsequently-recorded input images are compared. If bounding boxes around objects in the input images match those in the reference image, the objects in the bounding boxes are attempted to be matched to those in the reference image. If objects in the input image and reference image match, then the image data from the input image is coded using a pointer to the corresponding object in the reference image.