1. A system for transmitting color images comprising: an image capture device for receiving at least one color image; a gray scale image generator for removing color data from said image to produce gray scale version of said image; a first region detection device for identifying a plurality of arbitrarily-shaped discrete regions of said image and generating a region map, wherein each of said plurality of discrete regions of said region map encompass a portion of said gray scale image having a particular common value; a color region list compiler for compiling a color region list associating each of said plurality of regions with a color value; a transmission device for transmitting said gray scale version of said image and said color region list; a reception device for receiving said gray scale version of said image and said color region list; a second region detection device for identifying said plurality of arbitrarily-shaped discrete regions of said image identified by said first region detection device and generating said region map; and a color assignment device which receives said color region list and assigns a color value to each of said plurality of regions in said region map, based on information in said color region list to generate a colored region image.