An improved color space (YHB model) for compressing image files is provided. An example method includes storing a sum of an unweighted first color value and an unweighted second color value for each pixel in a plurality of pixels of an image as a first channel, subsampling, among the plurality of pixels, a difference between the first color value and the second color value as a second channel, subsampling, among the plurality of pixels, a third color value as a third channel, and storing the first channel, the second channel, and the third channel as the compressed image. In some implementations, the original image may be split into a low frequency version and a high frequency version. The system may apply the YHB model to the high frequency version and apply a conventional model or a second variation of the YHB model to the low frequency version.