The invention discloses an adaptive colour image processing method and an adaptive colour image processing system. The method comprises the following steps of: reading an image to be processed; carrying out overall adaptive transformation on the luminance component of the image to be processed through a non-linear inverse S-type function to obtain an overall luminance enhancement image; regulating the local contrast ratio of the overall luminance enhancement image according to the corresponding relation between the central pixel luminance and the neighborhood pixel luminance of the overall luminance enhancement image to obtain a local luminance enhancement image; and carrying out linear colour restoration on the image to be processed according to the ratio between the luminance componentsof the local luminance enhancement image and the image to be processed to obtain a colour enhancement image. By the method and through the system of the invention, the luminance of the image to be processed can be adaptively regulated; the contrast ratio of a back area and a bright area is enhanced at the same time; the local contrast ratio of the image to be processed can be effectively enhanced; the over-enhancement phenomenon generated at the edge of the image is inhibited; the colour of the image is well kept; and better enhancement effect is achieved.