An endoscope image data compressing apparatus comprises a plurality of image compressing apparatus not equivalent to each other for compressing input endoscope image data and outputting the compressed data and a selecting apparatus for selecting the compressed data output from at least one of the image compressing apparatus. The selecting apparatus selects the compressing method in response to the kind of the endoscope, characteristic of the image, picture quality of the compressed image, recording time intervals and others.A method for compressing endoscope image data is realized by an image compressing apparatus capable of compressing image data at different compressing rates. The endoscope image data is determined to be either ordinary image data or dyed image data and, based on this determination, is compressed at different rates. The compressing rate for dyed image data is lowered below the rate for ordinary image data.