In this paper a novel method called Extended TwoDimensional PCA (E2DPCA) is proposed which is an extension to the original 2DPCA. We state that the covariance matrix of 2DPCA is equivalent to the average of the main diagonal of the covariance matrix of PCA. This implies that 2DPCA eliminates some covariance information that can be useful for recognition. E2DPCA instead of just using the main diagonal considers a radius of r diagonals around it and expands the averaging so as to include the covariance information within those diagonals. The parameter r unifies PCA and 2DPCA. r=1 produces the covariance of 2DPCA, r=n that of PCA. Hence, by controlling r it is possible to control the trade-offs between recognition accuracy and energy compression (fewer coefficients), and between training and recognition complexity. Experiments on ORL face database show improvement in both recognition accuracy and recognition time over the original 2DPCA.