Histogram Export

Question

I am looking for a script to export the waveform data that may be present in the histogram (not sure if its there)?  Is there something out ther like this? I tried reindeer graphics plug-in Wide Histogram but can't get it to show up.  I am using CS3.
What I want to do is select a portion of an image and extract the spectral waveform data into a spreadsheet. I know it is a wierd request and I can try an clarify if need be.
Thanks.
Mark

Answer 1

The histogram doesn’t represent the wavelengths directly, but displays the number of pixels of varying brightness in the image overall or in the (in case of an RGB-image) three channels, 0 representing black, 255 representing white.
Anyway various (parts of) images may certainly produce very different histograms …
You could try this (it could be adapted for the three channels, but for that it would probably be good to know what form the text should have for Your purposes):
// creates a text-file from the histogram of active file/selection;
// 2009, use it at your own risk;
#target photoshop
if (app.documents.length > 0) {
var myDocument = app.activeDocument;
var theName = myDocument.name.match(/(.*)\.[^\.]+$/)[1];
var thePath = myDocument.path;
var theHistogram = myDocument.histogram;
var theText = new File(thePath+"/"+theName+"_histo.txt");
theText.open("w");
for (a = 0; a < theHistogram.length; a++){
// this line adds the number of the histogram-level;
theText.write(bufferNumberWithZeros(a,3)+"_");
// this line adds the number pixels of the respective histogram-level;
theText.write(theHistogram[a]);
theText.write("\n")
theText.close();
else {
alert ("no open document")
////// buffer number with zeros //////
function bufferNumberWithZeros (number, places) {
var theNumberString = String(number);
for (var o = 0; o < (places - String(number).length); o++) {
theNumberString = String("0" + theNumberString)
return theNumberString