Abstract: A technique of characterizing histograms using unique serial code words for discrimination between look alike acceptable and unacceptable items. The histogram is processed by normalizing the captured histogram image pixels preferably to the largest pixel size image normally encountered. Thereafter the histogram is attributed. The preferred embodiment related to a gray scale histogram (as distinguished from a histogram relating to area, length, width, perimeter, or aspect ratio) and successively attributes each histogram into peak location, range of histogram, peak value, right of peak value, and a selected gray scale count. For each attribute, an arbitrary range of codes is generated to break the classification of each attribute into manageable two-digit code categories. These two-digit code categories are typically written to a serial look-up table opposite the actual histogram value and extracted from the look-up table in real time to create two-digit code words.