This disclosure provides for an image editing system that permits manipulation of compressed image formats without full decompression to the image domain. In particular, an editor manipulates discrete cosine transform ("DCT") coefficients for a dependent frame in a compressed image sequence to incorporate DCT representations of anchor frames upon which the dependent frame depends. Once converted, the frame can simply be reordered in the compressed domain without violating temporal dependencies, subject to bit rate matching. In one embodiment, an image sequence can be cut to leave remaining image frames which are then altered, so as to eliminate temporal dependencies upon eliminated frames. In another embodiment, an image sequence can be processed in the compressed domain for reverse-play. The editor provided by this disclosure permits real-time compressed domain editing applications, with reduced requirements for computational bandwidth.