http://www.opticsinfobase.org/josaa/abstract.cfm?msid=85528 This article has been selected for inclusion in the Virtual Journal for Biomedical Optics (Vol. 3, Iss. 4)International audienceTextured surface analysis is essential for many applications. We present a three-dimensional recovery approach for real textured surfaces based on photometric stereo. The aim is to be able to measure the textured surfaces with a high degree of accuracy. For this, we use a color digital sensor and principles of color photometric stereo. This method uses a single color image, instead of a sequence of gray-scale images, to recover the surface of the three dimensions. It can thus be integrated into dynamic systems where there is significant relative motion between the object and the camera. To evaluate the performances of our method, we compare it on real textured surfaces to traditional photometric stereo using three images. We show thus that it is possible to have similar results with just one color image