An aspect of a method and apparatus for generating a compressed image file, and a terminal including the apparatus is receiving frame data comprising encoded image data of at least one frame of a raw image, generating first encoded thumbnail image data of the encoded image data, correcting the encoded image data and generating the compressed image file by using the corrected image data and the first encoded thumbnail image data when the encoded image data has an illuminance value lower than a preset reference value, and generating the compressed image file by using the encoded image data and the first encoded thumbnail image data when the encoded image data has an illuminance value greater than the preset reference value.