This paper has investigated the optical propagation process and a number of imaging algorithms. By integrating the retinex theory and the response function of a camera, we proposed a new algorithm for the enhancement of the luminance of images. When building the response function, according to the characteristics of the histogram, this algorithm selects the most representative feature points, connects a series of images in different manners and produces a set of three–dimensional luminance response functions. Through a set of strict evaluations, including the subjective analysis and the objective quality index, this study verified that the proposed algorithm performs well in adjusting the luminance of the images. When compared with the HSL luminance adjustment method, this algorithm also achieves a better performance in the mean square error. Furthermore, subjective analysis confirmed that the images produced by this algorithm are more suitable for people’s eyes than the images produced by other image enhancement methods.