We have devised and programmed a new scheme based on image processing techniques for extracting the intensity of fluorescent display low‐energy electron diffraction spots. The method make no assumptions about spot shape, does not use thresholding, and can deal with badly behaved backgrounds, noise spikes, and dead pixels. All decisions about whether a particular pixel belongs to a spot or to the background are made on purely logical grounds with generally binary operator masks. Once the spot edge has been defined, a local background is subtracted to generate an integrated spot intensity. Extensive tests with diffraction features ranging from very strong to indistinguishable from background by eye show this method to be stable, fast, and reproducible.