FTIR analysis using ATR imaging enables the analyst to probe a rubber surface for spatial descriptions of the following: locations of microscopic contaminants, hard phaselsoft phase maps of thermoplastic vulcanizates and thermoplastic elastomers. While an EDS equipped scanning electron microscope can provide valuable maps of elemental features, such capability is often insufficient to distinguish rubber and plastic materials whose elemental composition are virtually identical. In this paper we will show that Imaging ATR allows for things like needle-in-haystack contaminant analysis, as well as evaluation of mix quality in TPEs.