A particle/droplet image analysis (PDIA) system employing LED-illumination was designed Freezing the moving droplets using high speed camera instead of stroboscopic illumination, the system had no requirement to synchronize the backlight and the camera It featured low cost, low power consumption and simple optical configuration in comparison to laser-based systems Only focused droplets in images were Counted Given the sample size of the system was relatively small, an upper-limit lognormal distribution was used to fit the actual data to represent the spray patterns The accuracy of the diameter measurement was verified using precisely manufactured balls Comparisons with two laser-based systems were given and the system's capacity to distinct spray patterns were demonstrated in nozzle classification experiments (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved.