To compress a document, a number of edges present in a selected portion of the document are counted to determine whether the number of edges exceeds a threshold. When the number of edges exceeds the threshold, a pixel is selected from the portion and a set of neighboring pixels is identified for the pixel. For each neighboring pixel in a subset of the neighboring pixels, a corresponding label of the neighboring pixel is identified. A mask layer contains labels of pixels in the portion where a label of the selected pixel is biased using labels of neighboring pixels in the subset of the neighboring pixels. The selected pixel is designated to a foreground or a background layer of the document according to the label of the selected pixel. A compressed document is constructed corresponding to the document using the mask layer, the foreground layer, and the background layer.