This paper presents a new coding method for image compression based on jpeg2000 and contourlet transform. Jpeg2000 standard is a common standard that uses Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) in the compression process. The main problems of DWT are failure to detect curved edges in image and its shortage representation of the ridge and furrow patterns which cause deficiency and block artifacts remain in the decompressed image. Contourlet transform however, is a new two dimensional extension of the wavelet transform with multidirectional and multiscale filter banks. In this paper, jpeg2000 standard is improved by using contourlet transform and scalar quantization. The results obtained are compared with those of the wavelet based ones which show the superiority of the proposed method. In addition for images containing fine-textured, PSNR obtained by contourlet transform is higher than that of the wavelet transform, while texture and edge are reconstructed better than that of the Jpeg2000 standard. Manuscript profile