Tobacco is widely planted worldwide as an important economic crop. The differences of planting environment and growth status in different regions lead to different levels of tobacco quality, while color is one of the important indexes to evaluate the quality grade of tobacco leaves. Even for those that are planted in the same area, colors of different grades of tobacco leaves vary greatly, so the color of tobacco leaves is often used as the main evaluating index in tobacco leaves grading. In this paper color extraction of standard tobacco leaves based on HSI color space was thoroughly studied. H, S and I component would be quantified and extracted by using color histogram, then the average value corresponding to every color component was calculated. After extraction and calculation on the same level of standard tobacco leaves, the ranges of three color components could be obtained in HSI color space by using statistical method, and provide data information for tobacco leaves grading.