An image processing system that can receive compressed image data corresponding to a representation of an image and process that image data in an order that is independent of the order in which that image data was compressed. A first pass decoding identifies certain information pertaining to the coded units within the compressed image data. Based upon that information, the coded units in the compressed image data may be decoded in an order that is different than the order in which they were encoded, and portions of the image may be rotated by a multiple of 90° independently of other portions of the image, thereby reducing the amount of memory needed to decompress and rotate the compressed image data.