Measurement of whole-field deformation profiles is an important design as well as a health monitoring issue for mechanical and civil infrastructures. This paper reports the results of using digital image correlation to obtain surface deformation profiles. This is accomplished by correlating optical image sets obtained under various loading conditions. The method is demonstrated on a particulate composite with imbedded solid particles. The images are extracted from a VHS video of a tensile test, and have a resolution of 640x480 pixels. Similar images have also been taken using a simple off-the-shelf CCD camera