This study proposes a method which combines sliding filter with automatic region growth to extract surface crack defects on ceramic tiles with complex background interference and stereochemical structure. First, the acquired image is preprocessed and divided into two regions, namely tile head and texture area. Crack defects in the tile head region are detected by the customized sliding filter method, whereas those in the texture area are detected by the automatic region growth method. Finally, a morphological operation removes the spurious interference points and extracts the characteristic parameters of the cracks. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method effectively removes the complex background interference and extracts the surface cracks of ceramic tiles with stereochemical structure.