Abstract: A novel algorithm is presented for image edge detection and enhancement. During the edge detection phase, a new edge detection operator is employed to label exactly the edge because it can get rid of the conventional operators' miss-detection including the inflection and end points of edges and eliminate efficiently noise. During the edge enhancement phase, the Hopfield neural network is introduced to make up for missed edges and clear out false edges step by step via computing the energy function iteratively for network optimization. In this way the edge detection was done for the images of different types and the results are proved preferable to conventional detection procedure, thus verifying the feasibility of the algorithm.