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A method of determining the level and union shades of fabric by digital image analysis has been developed. Digitizing an image involves computer-based systems, peripherals, and software configured to access, process and display image data. These data can be video-displayed and computer-manipulated through various transformations for statistical treatments and mathematical relationships. The distribution of the number of pixels in a digitized image at a particular gray scale as a function of the gray scale can be portrayed as a histogram. The histogram features of dyed textiles were identified and used for objective measurements of level dyeings in 100% wool fabric and for union dyeings in 50/50 wool/cotton union fabrics. These dyed fabrics were pretreated with a durable press resin and quaternary amine compound by a pad/dry/cure process. They were subsequently dyed with C.I. Acid Red 114, C.I. Direct Red 79, C.I. Reactive Red 2 and C.I. Reactive Blue 19 in efficient, salt-free dyeing processes. Levelness values were developed from standard deviations of the gray scale means of individual histograms of the dyed fabrics. Union shades were determined by analyzing the shapes of the histograms where high, narrow, symmetrical shapes suggested union shades. Low, broad and skewed shapes suggested nonunion shades. Mathematical and statistical treatments of histogram data led to establishing thresholds and relative comparisons of dyed fabrics for union and level shades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]