The present disclosure provides an image special effect configuration method, an image recognition method and apparatus, which relate to the field of information processing technology. The image special effect configuration method includes: acquiring an image element; acquiring a target multimedia resource corresponding to the image element in response to a special effect configuration operation for the image element; storing the image element and the target multimedia resource into a special effect configuration file in an association way; the special effect configuration file being used for performing special effect configuration on an original image, so that the target multimedia resource is played in a case where the image element appears in the original image.