The present disclosure provides a picture display method and apparatus that relate to the field of image processing and are increase flexibility of picture display and reducing a memory occupation rate of a terminal on the premise of not modifying an attribute of an original picture. The method and apparatus include receiving an instruction for displaying a picture; obtaining, according to an identifier of a to-be-displayed picture included in the instruction, an original bitmap of the to-be-displayed picture and searching, a database of a current device for a pre-stored first rotation angle corresponding to the to-be-displayed picture; adjusting, according to a resolution of a current screen and/or a current window size, a display size of the original bitmap of the to-be-displayed picture, so as to obtain a compressed bitmap of the original bitmap; and displaying, according to the first rotation angle, a compressed bitmap of the original bitmap.