Objective The concept of visual region of interest was brought into the construction of the histogram. We proposed a new visual image enhancement method based on region of interest, in order to make the enhanced images more in line with the visual perception of the human eye. Methods In this method, advanced eye tracker device was used in the standard observation environment and visual region of interest, namely the human saliency map was obtained, whereby the image of the significant regions was analyzed. In each sub-region, salient value was obtained and normalized, so that weighted coefficient was obtained for each sub-region. Finally a similar idea to histogram equalization was adopted to optimize the dynamic range of the ratio of gray levels. Results Through subjective and objective experiments, the experimental results showed that the enhanced images were more in line with the visual perception of the human eye. Conclusion Histogram enhancement method combined with perceptual characteristics could compensate the drawback of the traditional histogram in the inconsistency with the visual perception, resulting in more enhanced image.