Changes of the average brightness and non-uniformity of dark output images, and quality of pictures captured under natural lighting for the color CMOS digital image sensors irradiated at different electron doses have been studied in comparison to those from the γ-irradiated sensors. For the electron-irradiated sensors, the non-uniformity increases obviously and a small bright region on the dark image appears at the dose of 0.4 kGy. The average brightness increases at 0.4 kGy, increases sharply at 0.5 kGy. The picture is very blurry only at 0.6 kGy, showing the sensor undergoes severe performance degradation. Electron radiation damage is much more severe than γ radiation damage for the CMOS image sensors. A possible explanation is presented in this paper.