Document analysis method to detect BW/color areas and corresponding scanning device

The invention relates to a document analysis method to detect BW/color areas comprising the following steps: getting an input image data to be split in elementary information; analysing the input data to get the colorfulness of each elementary information; creating a first and a second output layers corresponding to the BW and color elementary information respectively; applying a first set of atomic operations to the BW layer and a second different set of atomic operations to the color layer; and combining the BW and color layers in order to obtain a desired format for the output data. The invention also relates to a scanning device to acquire documents including an input that receives an input image data, and is connected to a layer creator component, which in turn outputs a first and a second layer, such layers having different data compression rate. Finally, the invention relates to a method for acquiring a document based on the analysis of the content of the document itself.