the present invention is directed to a method and apparatus for encoding a series of still images . the first image is captured and stored , then for each subsequent image of the series , that image is captured and compared to the first image or the previous image and difference information between the first or previous image and each subsequent image of the series is stored , resulting in one output file that contains the base image and difference information for each subsequent image , thereby reducing the amount of storage needed to store a series of images .