An approach for processing an image is presented. A category specifying characteristics of a shape of a license plate of a vehicle is determined. Based on the category, characteristics of objects in the image are determined to not match the characteristics of the shape of the license plate. Based on the characteristics of the objects in the image not matching the characteristics of the shape of the license plate, the image is determined to not include an identifiable license plate. In response to determining the image does not include the identifiable license plate, the image is determined to be invalid and a manual character recognition process for determining identifiers in license plates is bypassed.