1. A method for a processor in a computer system executing a set of instructions to recognize images comprising the steps of: extracting plural features from a set of N training images stored in a database on the computer system comprising the steps of: computing a covariance matrix S for the set of N training images; applying a discrete cosine transform to the covariance matrix S to obtain T according to T=Tr{S}; determining a covariance submatrix S′ of significant coefficients to replace the covariance matrix S; obtaining a set of k′ eigen values for S′; applying a discrete cosine transform to each image of the set of N training images to obtain submatrix T i ′=Tr{A i ′}; selecting a submatrix A i ′ from the submatrix T i ′ to represent the set of training images N; and calculating a feature matrix B i ′ of the set of N training images; receiving an unknown image At; and identifying the unknown image At using the plural extracted features, wherein the identification is accomplished in a transform domain using two-dimensional principal analysis.