A wide range of image features including luminance features, histogram related features and percentage oil area were extracted from images of cheese before and after cooking. Parameters calculated from these image attributes were correlated to the fat leakage determined with the traditional oil ring test using filter paper to investigate if the oiling off property of cheese can be evaluated with computer vision methods. Among the parameters derived from the luminance features, the difference of the number of pixels and the ratio of integrated grey value after and before cooking were highly correlated with fat leakage. However, none of the difference/ratio after and before cooking obtained from the histogram related features was significantly correlated with fat leakage. Percentage oil area was correlated to fat leakage with an R value of 0.852 and was a promising parameter for evaluating the oiling off property of cheese with computer vision. The correlation between image luminance features and fat leakage was temperature dependent. Stronger correlation with fat leakage was found for some image parameters extracted at 130 than at 110 degreesC. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.