Embodiments disclosed facilitate robust, accurate, and reliable recovery of words and/or characters in the presence of non-uniform lighting and/or shadows. In some embodiments, a method to recover text from image may comprise: expanding a Maximally Stable Extremal Region (MSER) in an image, the neighborhood comprising a plurality of sub-blocks; thresholding a subset of the plurality of sub-blocks in the neighborhood, the subset comprising sub-blocks with text, wherein each sub-block in the subset is thresholded using a corresponding threshold associated with the sub-block; and obtaining a thresholded neighborhood.