The suggested approach provides an opportunity under the conditions of enterprises to give a comprehensive view of products defects and functional coatings imperfections. The application of the computer program developed in the Microsoft Visual Studio environment, which allows digital image processing of the studied surfaces to estimate the area of external defects of materials, regardless of the nature of the origin of defects and the method of image acquisition, is proved. Research methods. Digital images of metal surfaces and coatings obtained by energy dispersive microanalysis, electron and optical microscopy have been tested. Research results and novelty. The possibility of using the program for evaluation of surface bands with local chemical and morphological inhomogeneities, determination of the porosity of materials is shown. The possibility of express evaluation of digital images of objects at macro-, meso- and microstructural levels for automated diagnostic control of surface defects within 1-2 seconds is implemented. Disaggregation of brightness, texture and color components of the image significantly increases the speed and efficiency of image processing structures. Conclusions: The proposed program is versatile, does not require special user skills and serves as a convenient tool for analyzing and controlling the quality of objects of various physico-chemical nature. The results of the study indicate that the application of the developed computer program makes effective quantitative calculation of the area of local defects, areas of distribution of chemical elements, various inclusions, surface porosity of products and coatings possible.