A method and apparatus for efficient image encoding in a predictive coding or other error image based image compression scheme, a pseudo-fixed length code is employed to convert certain calculated error values into codewords. The code is pseudo-fixed length since the length of codewords is fixed for a particular range of values and then increased for the next range. The length of codewords is not needed in decoding by choosing prefixes that uniquely distinguish codewords when packed together. As a result, efficient and quick image encoding/decoding is made possible.