An edge enhancement system, including a selective edge controller for determining one or more properties of an edge of image data, and for generating one or more weighting factors on the basis of properties of the edge; and a scaling module for scaling an edge enhancement signal by the weighting factors to control the degree of edge enhancement. The image data may represent a still or moving (i.e., video) image. A max-min search circuit determines maximum and minimum turning points closest to the center of the data processing window and that are located on opposing sides of the window, to determine values and locations of maximum and minimum pixels of the edge. An edge-directed pre-filtering circuit reduces the amplification of edge fuzziness by smoothing close the edges vertical prior to enhancement. An aliasing protection circuit reduces the visibility of saw-tooth defects on predominantly horizontal diagonal edges.