Abstract: To address problems such as low contrast, color distortion, and detail blurring of underwater images caused by light absorption, reflection, and scattering, this study proposes an underwater image restoration and enhancement method based on an improved dark channel prior and adaptive correction. First, underwater background light estimation was established using a guided filter based on the Jaffe–McGlamery model. Second, the transmittance of the red-green-blue three-channel aqueous medium was calculated based on an improved dark channel prior. The automatic color method and adaptive gamma correction were then used for image restoration enhancement. Finally, by combining the improved Sobel operator, the image edge detail in the brightness component was enhanced with respect to the HSI color space to obtain a restoration-enhanced underwater image with rich color information that is consistent with human visual perception. The experimental results from two public underwater image datasets showed that our method effectively eliminated color deviations and improved the contrast, visibility, and clarity of the underwater image, with higher UIQM and UCIQE values than those of comparative methods.