Assessment of skin microcirculation can be noninvasively assessed with many different technologies, including laser Doppler flowmetry and imaging, photoplethysmography and capillaroscopy, among others. Capillaroscopy is an imaging technique employed for observation of skin microvasculature at nail cuticle level, particularly for the detection of the morphological abnormalities that accompany several diseases, including connective tissue diseases. In recent years several publications have demonstrated that universal serial bus (USB) digital microscopes provide high quality images with comparable diagnostic sensitivity to conventional devices at a lower cost. However, few studies have tested the usefulness of USB digital microscopes to assess skin perfusion in vivo. This pilot study aimed at assessing skin perfusion in healthy subjects during a classic upper limb occlusion maneuver to evoke reactive hyperemia using a USB digital microscope. Seven healthy subjects (21.2 ± 3.4 y.o.) participated in this study after giving informed consent. After acclimatization, subjects performed a standard suprasystolic limb occlusion (SLO) protocol in a random upper limb while sitting upright, as follows: 5 min resting with both arms at heart level (phase I), 3 min occlusion (200 mmHg, phase II) with a tourniquet cuff and 5 min recovery (phase III). The nailfold capillaries of the fourth finger were continuously visualized with a USB digital microscope throughout the protocol. Each video recording was decomposed into its individual frames and several regions of interest (ROI) were selected. For each ROI several image texture parameters were calculated (entropy, contrast, correlation, energy, homogeneity). Skin blood flow was quantified in the pulp of the second finger with photoplethysmography. These parameters were compared between the different phases of the protocol with the Wilcoxon test for related samples (p<0.05). As expected, skin blood flow decreased significantly during occlusion and increased significantly upon release of the cuff. Most texture parameters also changed significantly in both phases of the protocol, although with opposite trends and with different magnitudes. These results suggest that skin perfusion could be easily assessed with low-cost USB digital microscopes, although further studies are needed to compare its performance with other optical technologies.