An automated computerized method for identifying, from an image, regions of consistent reflectance, comprising the steps of: • identifying tokens in the image, the tokens being linear tokens, wherein the linear tokens are identified in the image by testing, for each pixel of the image, whether the current pixel and its neighboring pixels fall within a cylinder in RGB color space with a positive slope from a dark end to a bright end for all color channels of the image, a linear token being a connected region of the image wherein adjacent pixels of the region have differing color measurement values that fall within a cylinder in RGB color space with a positive slope from a dark end to a bright end for all color channels of the image; • generating a token list and a token graph, wherein the token graph is a graph showing neighbor relationships in the image among identified tokens, the neighbor relationships being such that all tokens in the graph are within a maximum pixel distance of a respective subject token; • testing all pairs of neighbors in the token graph to evaluate whether the change between the neighboring tokens is caused by an illumination change, the testing being done by at least one of ▪ determining whether one token neighbor is darker than the other in all color bands; ▪ determining whether an angle between a line connecting the origin of RGB color space with the darker token color of the pair and a line connecting the colors of the tokens of the pair is below a predefined threshold; • searching the token list for groups of tokens where neighboring tokens are linked by illumination changes as tested in the previous step and wherein the color values of the tokens define a cylinder in RGB color space for the image with a positive slope from a dark end to a bright end for all color channels of the image as predicted by a bi-illuminant dichromatic reflection (BIDR) model, which takes into account an ambient illuminant in addition to a direct illuminant, according to which each such cylinder corresponds to a single material under varying intensity of the direct illuminant in a scene depicted in the image, a change of the intensity of the direct illuminant corresponding to a variation along the cylinder; and • calculating according to the BIDR model a material color from the pixels in a token group by estimating the direct illuminant or assuming it white, the calculated material color corresponding to a region of consistent reflectance. • identifying tokens in the image, the tokens being linear tokens, wherein the linear tokens are identified in the image by testing, for each pixel of the image, whether the current pixel and its neighboring pixels fall within a cylinder in RGB color space with a positive slope from a dark end to a bright end for all color channels of the image, a linear token being a connected region of the image wherein adjacent pixels of the region have differing color measurement values that fall within a cylinder in RGB color space with a positive slope from a dark end to a bright end for all color channels of the image; • generating a token list and a token graph, wherein the token graph is a graph showing neighbor relationships in the image among identified tokens, the neighbor relationships being such that all tokens in the graph are within a maximum pixel distance of a respective subject token; • testing all pairs of neighbors in the token graph to evaluate whether the change between the neighboring tokens is caused by an illumination change, the testing being done by at least one of ▪ determining whether one token neighbor is darker than the other in all color bands; ▪ determining whether an angle between a line connecting the origin of RGB color space with the darker token color of the pair and a line connecting the colors of the tokens of the pair is below a predefined threshold; ▪ determining whether one token neighbor is darker than the other in all color bands; ▪ determining whether an angle between a line connecting the origin of RGB color space with the darker token color of the pair and a line connecting the colors of the tokens of the pair is below a predefined threshold; • searching the token list for groups of tokens where neighboring tokens are linked by illumination changes as tested in the previous step and wherein the color values of the tokens define a cylinder in RGB color space for the image with a positive slope from a dark end to a bright end for all color channels of the image as predicted by a bi-illuminant dichromatic reflection (BIDR) model, which takes into account an ambient illuminant in addition to a direct illuminant, according to which each such cylinder corresponds to a single material under varying intensity of the direct illuminant in a scene depicted in the image, a change of the intensity of the direct illuminant corresponding to a variation along the cylinder; and • calculating according to the BIDR model a material color from the pixels in a token group by estimating the direct illuminant or assuming it white, the calculated material color corresponding to a region of consistent reflectance.