An imager for capturing and processing images for a variety of applications which may be connected to a transceiver such as a cell phone, a personal digital assistant or an internet appliance for transmitting the images over a limited bandwidth network, is described. The imaging applications include bar code and photograph still images, and permanent video and video phone motion images. The imager may be self-contained providing the image signal to be transmitted by the transceiver, or the imager and the transceiver may be combined into a single integrated unit. The imager comprises a high resolution CMOS image sensor, a processor for controlling the image sensor and for processing image data from the image sensor, and an interface for providing commands to the processor and for viewing displays generated by the processor. The method of processing the images includes the steps of determining the bandwidth of the network, selecting an imaging application, determining the image format required, acquiring image data in the image sensor, processing the image data into the format required, and transferring the data for transmission over the network.