We report the quantum-enhanced metal target detection based on quantum illumination, and experimentally verified that quantum illumination still helps low-reflectivity target detection in photon loss scenarios. The results show that the signal-to-noise ratio and target recognition ability of the quantum detection system are more than 10 times stronger than those of the classical detection under the same thermal noise conditions. We believe that the photon-counting based QI protocol, for its robustness to noise and losses, has a huge potentiality to promote the usage of quantum correlated light in real environments. © 2019 SPIE.