We proposed a two-scale image-fusion method for infrared and visible light image fusion based on guided filtering to reduce the complexity of multi-scale decomposition fusion algorithms and improve the adaptability of fused images to human visual characteristics. First, we used guided filtering to enhance the visible image and decomposed the source images into base and detail layers using guided filtering. In the fusion rules of the detail layer, we adopted the energy protection methods and detail extraction. Finally, we combined the fused detail layer with the base layer to synthesize the fusion results. The experimental results showed that the proposed method improves the visual effect, detail processing, and edge protection. We discussed the impact of visible image enhancement on fusion methods from experimental data. Enhancement can improve the fusion effect, but the fusion method is key in image fusion.