A method of inspecting fabricated articles includes receiving a fabricated article to be inspected for defects, the fabricated article having a pattern thereon, and the pattern being based on a pattern design and creating a rule set for defining critical regions of the pattern as represented in the pattern design, the critical regions being regions in which defects are more likely to be found during inspection. The method also includes applying the rule set to the pattern design to identify a critical region of the pattern on the fabricated article and a non-critical region of the pattern on the fabricated article. Further, the method includes inspecting the non-critical region of the pattern on the fabricated article for defects at first resolution and inspecting the critical region of the pattern on the fabricated article for defects at a second resolution higher than the first resolution.