An adaptive detail enhancement method based on subband-decomposed multi-scale Retinex is proposed to deal with high dynamic range compression of infrared images and detail enhancement in both high light regions and dim regions. Three independent spectrum subbands using subband- decomposed multi- scale Retinex are gained. Then guided image filter is applied to get detail layer and base layer from each subband. Later the basis weight function for detail enhancement is proposed according to characteristic of separate spectrum subband. Adaptive detail enhancement is achieved with basis weight function. In order to eliminate the nonuniformity of gray intensity in the outcome image, a new adaptive way to get Gamma curve for gray value remapping is put forward. Experimental results show that the detail of the enhanced images is upgraded greatly in both high light regions and dim regions, and have a satisfied visual effect. Objective evaluation parameters illustrate that the proposed algorithm can effectively enhance detail of infrared images. In addition, the time consuming is not lengthened compared to other algorithms in the experiment.