A process for predicting an amount of coarse flakes, such as metallic aluminum flakes, present in a coating composition, such as automotive paint. The process includes measuring flop of a layer of the coating composition applied over a test substrate by using a flop prediction device. The process is repeated with varying amounts of one or more different types of coarse flakes added to the composition and the flop vs. amount of coarse flakes present in the coating composition is plotted on a graph. By using a curve fitting equation, a flake amount prediction curve then is obtained. By measuring the flop of a wet layer of a target coating composition, the amount of coarse flakes present in the target coating composition can be predicted by using the flake amount prediction curve.