In this paper

a now color image compression algorithm in DWT domain is proposed

in which the visual masking and the correlation between color components are utilized. Firstly

the discrete wavelet transform is performed on three different color components in RGB color space

and the wavelet coefficients are weighed based on the human visual masking. Then weighed wavelet coefficients are converted to user’s defined Y′U′V′color space. Finally

the wavelet coefficients are progressively encoded in Y′U′V′color space by the extended zerotree structure and the improved EZW scheme. Experimental results show that the new color image compression scheme performs better than that of CEZW and CZW in the aspect of recovery image quality and coding/decoding time.