Measuring the grayscale color gradient

[tarika]

Hi!

I am new to ImageJ and would really appreciate if someone could point me in the right direction. The image shows discolored tissue retrieved from used orthopedic implants. The image was originally RGB but I converted it to 8-bit grayscale and calibrated to optical density. My goal is to somehow measure the different shades seen in the image and quantify them. I am thinking of measuring optical density for different regions of the image, but am not sure how to go about it. I tried the method used for gel analysis and divided the image into lanes. But in this case, its very difficult to get well defined peaks since the outlines are not well defined. Also, I am not sure how to get data for every lane separately from the plots.
Could someone please tell me if I am doing something wrong or if there is a better way to do this? Thanks a lot!