Due to the low contrast, insufficient luminance of photographed images in cluttered scenes, the energy of correlation peaks is very weak. Sometimes even no correlation peaks appear when the hybrid optoelectronic joint transform correlator is used to detect and recognize targets. Therefore, the wavelet transform technology used for the joint transform power spectrum (JTPS) is presented in this paper. The method effectively supresses the noise interference of JTPS, improves the energy of diffractive light carried useful information, and enhances the ability of detecting and recognizing targets in cluttered scenes by joint transform correlator. The experimental results prove that the energy of correlation peaks after processing the JTPS by wavelet transform is strenthened. As an example, the optical experimental results of the boat in lake are showed. It is obvious that the method is very feasible from experimental results.