The invention discloses a color image quality evaluation method based on HVSs and quaternions and belongs to the technical field of image processing and computer vision. The method includes the steps that firstly, mathematic evaluation models of an original reference image and a distorted image to be evaluated are established through analysis of human vision features, wherein the mathematic evaluation models comprise spatial location functions Q<L>, local variances Q<V>, texture edge complexity functions Q<TE> and color functions Q<C> of the images; secondly, quaternion arrays of the original reference image and the distorted image to be evaluated are established and singular value decomposition is conducted on the quaternion arrays, so that singular value feature vectors of the images can be acquired; thirdly, the image distortion degree is measured through the Euclidean distance of the singular value feature vectors of the original reference image and the distorted image to be evaluated. According to the method, the human vision features and the quaternions are combined, brightness and chromaticity information of the images is extracted, the spatial location functions, the texture edge complexity functions and the local variances are established through the human vision features, and an evaluation result accords with a result generated in the mode that the images are sensed by the human eyes.