Polished cross sections of plasma-sprayed yttria-stabilized zirconia coatings deposited using different process parameters were prepared with both hot- and vacuum-mounting techniques and investigated by image analysis. It was found that polishing-induced pull-outs were evidently present on the hot-mounted cross sections, and that the perimeter of these pull-outs could be described statistically by means of fractal analysis. In this work, values of the corresponding fractal dimension range from 1.45-1.54; they increase linearly while increasing fracture toughness, and decrease with the increase in porosity of the coatings. Thus, this fractal dimension may be regarded as a measure of the fracture toughness of the coatings, but only for hot-mounted samples.