Surface photometry of galaxies has undergone a great advance recently with the development of fast digital plate-measuring machines, powerful computers to process the huge amount of data from them, and efficient image-processing software. Further, the recent advent of charge-coupled devices (CCDs) has made the technique effective even with relatively small telescopes. Because of their very high sensitivity, especially in the red wavelength region, CCDs have opened a new era of surface photometry. The methodology of surface photometry of galaxies is reviewed and recent results are summarized. Future prospects of the technique in galaxy research are briefly discussed.