A method based on the curvelet transform is introduced to estimate the orientation distribution from two-dimensional images of small anisotropic particles. Orientation of fibers in paper is considered as a particular application of the method. Theoretical aspects of the suitability of this method are discussed and its efficiency is demonstrated with simulated and real images of fibrous systems. Comparison is made with two traditionally used methods of orientation analysis, and the new curvelet-based method is shown to perform better than these tradi- tional methods.