A method according to the invention enhances contrast of an image by accessing an original image, and establishing, assigning, or initializing pixel values and pixel coordinates of pixels of the image. Then, a Laplacian pyramid having an integral number of levels is generated for the image. A contrast boost pyramid is generated and applied to the Laplacian pyramid to obtain a modified Laplacian pyramid wherein values in the levels of the Laplacian pyramid are enhanced. An enhanced image is then constructed from the modified Laplacian pyramid.