A method for efficient spatial domain filtering, directly in the discrete cosine transform (DCT) domain, is developed and proposed. It consists of using the discrete sine transform (DST) and the DCT for transform-domain processing on the in JPEG basis of the previously derived convolution-multiplication properties of discrete trigonometric transforms. The proposed scheme requires neither zero padding of the input data nor kernel symmetry. It is demonstrated that, in typical applications, the proposed algorithm is significantly more efficient than the conventional filtered spatial domain and earlier proposed DCT domain methods. The proposed method is applicable to any DCT-based image compression standard, such as JPEG, MPEG, and H.261.