Method for the optical assessment of harvested crop, said method including the following steps: recording an image of the harvested crop with a camera; identifying individual objects in the image by means of an electronic image processing system by dividing the image into individual objects and background by means of a binary cutting mask and by only processing the individual objects further; processing the individual objects further in a size-dependent manner; classifying the individual objects into predetermined object classes by way of comparison between colour features and contour features and texture features of the individual objects and corresponding features of reference objects stored in a database by means of the image processing system; and determining the absolute or relative numbers or areas of the individual objects assigned to the respective object classes, characterized in that the camera is focussed into a channel through a panel that is transparent to visible light, harvested crop being conveyed in said channel within a harvesting machine; and in that, when the individual objects are processed further in a size-dependent manner, the individual objects lying above a threshold value of one or more dimensions are divided into a plurality of individual objects by local brightness scaling and an application of a cutting mask with sharper discrimination parameters than in the case of the first application of the cutting mask (S108, S110) and in that, following the size-dependent further processing and before the classification of the individual objects, the centre of gravity and orientation of the individual objects is established and, should a further individual object centre of gravity be situated in the vicinity of the current region to be examined and the relative orientations be similar to one another, the point clouds of the two individual objects are fused (S118, S120). recording an image of the harvested crop with a camera; identifying individual objects in the image by means of an electronic image processing system by dividing the image into individual objects and background by means of a binary cutting mask and by only processing the individual objects further; processing the individual objects further in a size-dependent manner; classifying the individual objects into predetermined object classes by way of comparison between colour features and contour features and texture features of the individual objects and corresponding features of reference objects stored in a database by means of the image processing system; and determining the absolute or relative numbers or areas of the individual objects assigned to the respective object classes, characterized in that the camera is focussed into a channel through a panel that is transparent to visible light, harvested crop being conveyed in said channel within a harvesting machine; and in that, when the individual objects are processed further in a size-dependent manner, the individual objects lying above a threshold value of one or more dimensions are divided into a plurality of individual objects by local brightness scaling and an application of a cutting mask with sharper discrimination parameters than in the case of the first application of the cutting mask (S108, S110) and in that, following the size-dependent further processing and before the classification of the individual objects, the centre of gravity and orientation of the individual objects is established and, should a further individual object centre of gravity be situated in the vicinity of the current region to be examined and the relative orientations be similar to one another, the point clouds of the two individual objects are fused (S118, S120).