supplying a progression of N-line windows of the image, where N is a positive integer, where 1<N<<K and where N is independent of K; performing vertical high pass filtering on each N-line window that has been supplied; and performing vertical low pass filtering on each N-line window that has been supplied; the lifting steps performed as follows: H n(i)=0.5[x 2n(i)???P(x 2n , x 2n+2(i))]; and L n(i