Abstract: In response to the problems such as color degradation and contrast reduction caused by the scattering effect in turbid underwater environments, this paper proposes a method that combines Contrast Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization (CLAHE) with an improved multi-scale retinex algorithm with color restoration (MSRCR). Firstly, underwater polarized images are obtained in the laboratory and the Stokes decomposition is performed on the images to obtain intensity images and polarization degree images. Secondly, gamma correction is applied to the obtained intensity images, and then the images are decomposed into high-frequency and low-frequency images using the wavelet decomposition method. The low-frequency image is enhanced in contrast using the CLAHE algorithm, and the high-frequency image is restored with the improved MSRCR algorithm. The processed low-frequency component and high-frequency component are reconstructed through the inverse wavelet transformation to obtain the initially enhanced image. Finally, the initially enhanced image is guided filtered and dynamic range compressed using the polarization degree image to obtain the enhanced underwater image. Through quantitative analysis in experiments, the algorithm can effectively improve problems such as color deviation, low contrast, and uneven illumination of the image, and can achieve effective enhancement of underwater images.