A new fast two-dimension 8×8 discrete cosine transform (2D 8×8 DCT) algorithm based on the characteristics of the basic images of 2D DCT is presented. The new algorithm computes each DCT coefficient in turn more independently. Hence, the new algorithm is suitable for 2D DCT pruning algorithm of pruning away any number of high-frequency components of 2D DCT. The proposed pruning algorithm is more efficient than the existing pruning 2D DCT algorithms in terms of the number of arithmetic operations, especially the number of multiplications required in the computation. discrete cosine transform, basic image, quantization, image coding