The embodiments of the present invention provide an image processing method and an electronic device. The method comprises: obtaining all image characteristics contained in each of N captured images and determining at least one image characteristic from the all image characteristics; searching the N images for at least two images each containing the at least one image characteristic based on the at least one image characteristic; determining a reference image from the at least two images and obtaining image residue information characterizing an image difference parameter between the reference image and each of the at least two images; and applying data compression to the reference image and the image residue information. In this way, it is possible to solve the problem associated with limited image compression scheme and large space occupation by pictures.