An image compression apparatus, comprising: an image reduction unit to generate a reduced, down-sampled image with a reduced resolution by down-sampling an input image; means to generate a down-sampled, encoded and decoded image by encoding and decoding the reduced down-sampled image; an interpolation filter information decision unit to determine interpolation filter information, based on the input image and the reduced down-sampled, encoded and decoded image; and wherein the interpolation filter information decision unit comprises: an image divider to divide the reduced image into a plurality of blocks; a representative block selector to generate at least one group including blocks having a similar pixel value, and to select a representative block for each of the at least one group of blocks, based on calculating errors for each of the blocks with respect to other blocks in the at least one group and to select the block having the smallest error as the representative block in each of the at least one group; and an interpolation coefficient decision unit to determine a matrix of interpolation filter coefficients with respect to the representative block in each of the at least one group, based on minimizing an error between the input image and a result image obtained by applying the interpolation filter coefficients to the reduced, down-sampled encoded and decoded image, and a bitstream generator to generate a bitstream by coding the encoded reduced down-sampled image and by including the determined interpolation filter information comprising the matrix of interpolation filter coefficients and the representative block. an image reduction unit to generate a reduced, down-sampled image with a reduced resolution by down-sampling an input image; means to generate a down-sampled, encoded and decoded image by encoding and decoding the reduced down-sampled image; an interpolation filter information decision unit to determine interpolation filter information, based on the input image and the reduced down-sampled, encoded and decoded image; and wherein the interpolation filter information decision unit comprises: an image divider to divide the reduced image into a plurality of blocks; a representative block selector to generate at least one group including blocks having a similar pixel value, and to select a representative block for each of the at least one group of blocks, based on calculating errors for each of the blocks with respect to other blocks in the at least one group and to select the block having the smallest error as the representative block in each of the at least one group; and an interpolation coefficient decision unit to determine a matrix of interpolation filter coefficients with respect to the representative block in each of the at least one group, based on minimizing an error between the input image and a result image obtained by applying the interpolation filter coefficients to the reduced, down-sampled encoded and decoded image, and a bitstream generator to generate a bitstream by coding the encoded reduced down-sampled image and by including the determined interpolation filter information comprising the matrix of interpolation filter coefficients and the representative block. an image divider to divide the reduced image into a plurality of blocks; a representative block selector to generate at least one group including blocks having a similar pixel value, and to select a representative block for each of the at least one group of blocks, based on calculating errors for each of the blocks with respect to other blocks in the at least one group and to select the block having the smallest error as the representative block in each of the at least one group; and an interpolation coefficient decision unit to determine a matrix of interpolation filter coefficients with respect to the representative block in each of the at least one group, based on minimizing an error between the input image and a result image obtained by applying the interpolation filter coefficients to the reduced, down-sampled encoded and decoded image, and a bitstream generator to generate a bitstream by coding the encoded reduced down-sampled image and by including the determined interpolation filter information comprising the matrix of interpolation filter coefficients and the representative block.