Provided are a method, system and program for fractionally shifting input data subject to a first transform process without first applying an inverse transformation by using a second transform process. The second transform process applies a transformed matrix to the transformed data. At least one transformed matrix is provided in non-volatile storage, wherein each transformed matrix is generated by applying the first transform process to a fractional shift matrix operator. The input data that was transformed using the first transform process is received and the at least one transformed matrix is applied to the transformed input data to generate transformed data that represents fractionally shifted transformed output data.