The invention is directed to a method and apparatus for serially receiving and dimensionally transforming an image in an ordered sequence of interleaved blocks. Each block comprises an ordered sequence of samples of the image, and the samples of a single block all corresponding to a single color component. The method includes steps of counting the samples in the order received to determine a sequence number for each sample, comparing the sequence number with a set of predetermined values; and dimensionally transforming the image by either discarding the sample or storing the sample in a memory depending on the result of the comparison.