The aim of this study was to propose a novel encrypted holographic watermarking algorithm based on Contourlet-DFT. Firstly, the carrier image was decomposed by Contourlet transform. Then the low frequency subband was transformed to the frequency domain by Fourier transform. Finally, the encrypted holographic watermark was embedded into the amplitude of high spectral magnitude of the low frequency subband. And the same replacement was done in the central symmetrical block. Simulation results showed that the algorithm was of good invisible ability， and the reconstructed watermark can be identified. The proposed method with good robustness can well resist attacks such as low-pass filtering, noise, JPEG compression and cropping. The algorithm can survive print-scan attack as well. The carrier image was not needed during watermark extraction and the proposed algorithm was blind. The proposed watermarking algorithm can meet the need of copyright protection of digital images.