Radial harmonic‐Fourier moments (RHFMs) are popular for image reconstruction and invariant pattern recognition due to their properties of translation, scaling and rotation invariant. RHFMs possess lower computation complexity as compared to Zernike moments and Bessel‐Fourier moments. However, they always suffer from discontinuity, numerical instability near the center of image, and reconstruction error, especially have a rise for higher order of moments. In this paper, an improvement of radial harmonic‐Fourier moments (IRHFMs) is proposed for effectively avoiding the above‐mentioned problems.In this paper, a 2D fast Fourier transform algorithm also is applied to the image matrix to obtain the IRHFMs. Simulation experimental results demonstrate the proposed IRHFMs perform better than traditional RHFMs and other classic orthogonal moments including the latest image moments, for example, polar harmonic Fourier moments in terms of the image reconstruction capability and rotation invariant recognition accuracy in noise‐free and noisy conditions.