1. A method for correcting defective pixel artifacts in a direct radiography image comprising executing, for a defective pixel, the steps of: gathering information on a defective state of image pixels surrounding the defective pixel; composing an adaptive reconstruction kernel by combining a set of pair-wise arranged kernel locations which correspond to non-defective pixels in a vicinity of the defective pixel; obtaining image data associated with the set of pair-wise arranged kernel locations in the adaptive reconstruction kernel; processing the associated image data along with kernel data using a reconstruction algorithm to calculate a replacement value for image data of the defective pixel; and replacing the defective pixel image data with the replacement value; wherein the adaptive reconstruction kernel includes an even number of non-defective, center symmetrical kernel-pair locations relative to a center of the adaptive reconstruction kernel and is added to a center symmetrical pair kernels structure.