Abstract: To overcome the drawbacks of available techniques in rapid real-time processing of color images, a color image compression system with higher processing rate and higher PSNR was put forward. It was found that with the rotation of YUV space, the chromatogram of an original image can be changed and so the compression effect can be improved. By comparing the effects of available interpolation methods on the quality of the last image restored, a two-dimensional digital over lap low-pass filter was used, combined with a monochromatic multi-mode self-adaptive compression method. By the computer testes, it was demonstrated that the proposed system has an obviously higher processing rate and PSNR than JPEG method within a fixed range of compression ratio.