Based on the detection of storm losses in Swiss alpine forest areas, two different digital classification approaches were compared. In contrast to the pixel based classification we investigated an object-oriented classification procedure. The eCognition software package ofDefiniens offers this possibility. The comparison was performed for images with different spatial resolution - very high resolution images of IKONOS, and images of SPOT in the sharpened mode. The evaluation of the IKONOS image indicated a significantly higher accuracy for the object-oriented classification approach than for the pixel-based method. The eCognition software handles the high level of detail and the associated high texture better than the pixelbased parallelepiped-algorithm. The quality of the pixel-based approach, which takes into account only the spectral information and some derived data-products is limited for very high resolution images. The  classification of the SPOT presented approximately the same results for both methods.