Abstract: The aim of the study is to investigate the influence of illuminating source and lighting environment on fabric images collected.Based on optical characters of fabric such as reflection,spectrum and colour saturation,the effects of several kinds of illuminating source such as LED,halogen lamp and fluorescent lamp,lighting environment and parameters on fabric images were analyzed.The methods of energy,variance,entropy,limit deviation and contrast were used to study the features of extraction of fabric image.Their optimal parameters of illumination for enhancement of fabric defect signal were analyzed.The experimental results show that enhancement of fabric defect signal varies with illuminating source and illumination.The respond and difference for defect signal feature are obvious under different illuminations,thereby the best illumination parameter for extraction of defect signal can be obtained.