Aiming at the problem of impure simplicity and too simple feature extraction of training samples in the existing saliency detection model based on guided learning, an improved algorithm based on Boosting was proposed to detect saliency, which improve the accuracy of the training sample set and improve the way of feature extraction to achieve the improvement of learning effect. Firstly, the coarse sample map was generated from the bottom-up model for saliency detection, and the coarse sample map was quickly and effectively optimized by the cellular automata to establish the reliable Boosting samples. The training samples were set up to mark the original images. Then, the color and texture features were extracted from the training set. Finally, Support Vector Machine (SVM) weak classifiers with different feature and different kernel were used to generate a strong classifier based on Boosting, and the foreground and background of each pixel of the image was classified, and a saliency map was obtained. On the ASD database and the SED1 database, the experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can produce complete clear and salient maps for complex and simple images, with good AUC (Area Under Curve) evaluation value for accuracy-recall curve. Because of its accuracy, the proposed algorithm can be applied in pre-processing stage of computer vision.