The work aims to segment the image based on the Otsu algorithm and then recognize the English characters in the natural scene images with the method of optical character recognition. First, preliminary binarization of the image was carried with the block Ostu method. Then, the original input image was segmented into sub-graphs of single character after analyzing the binarization results, and all the sub-graphs were binarized again with the Otsu algorithm. Last, the finally obtained binarization results were recognized. Then, the recognition results were modified in combination with the previously obtained information on the number of characters and the dictionary in each image, so as to obtain the final recognition results. The proposed algorithm was tested on the ICDAR2013 dataset. The correct recognition rate of words was 46.03% and the total editing distance was 474.5. The proposed block recognition algorithm based on the Otsu method can better segment the background and the text in complex background images and improve the recognition effect combined with the dictionary information used to modify the recognition results.