Image segmentation is an important research of computer vision. Due to the effects of intensity inhomogeneity, target edge and background complex, it is still challenging to achieve effective segmentation of target adaptively. To solve these issues, an image segmentation method based on saliency and level set is proposed in this paper. First, adaptive initial contour of level set is got by wavelet-based feature probability evaluation (WFPE) model, the initial contour is closer to the target contour, which can reduce background interference and evolve faster. Second, in order to realize the best detection of intensity mutation and locate the target edge more accurately, an edge constraint energy term is introduced with multi-scale information obtained by wavelet transform. Finally, to improve segmentation adaptability and speed, the region information and edge constraint energy term are merged into the adaptive active contour model, the final evolution curve evolves in coarse scale, and then interpolates to get the final segmentation contour. Experimental results show that the proposed method achieves high efficiency in the following aspects: Adaptability to images, speed of evolution, close to human visual perception.