• View
• Edit
• History
• Source
• Backlinks
• Set Attributes

• login

< PDF | Knowledge Base | Process >

An extreme close up of an LCD screen showing its physical pixels and the individual "RGB" dots that make up each physical pixel. This image itself is made of pixels of course.

In digital imaging terminology a pixel is a picture element used to display image and video information.

Pixels are dots of which all digital images (still or moving) are composed, similar to the halftoning process of printing. An image file is therefore sometimes called a "pixmap" as it is a grid, or map, of pixels.

Each pixel is composed on a screen by a 'triad' of three dots: red, green and blue. It is the variable illumination of these dots that cause the appearance of color via the Additive system. On a technical level, image files contain information about the RGB values of each pixel on the pixmap.

Pixels are an abstract concept and do not represent any physical size information. For example, if a display monitor has a physical resolution of 72 dpi (dots per inch) then 100 pixels equals 1.38 inches. The exact same 100 pixels printed by a very high quality commercial press, with a resolution of 1200 dpi would be 0.08 inches.

Normally, pixels are assumed to be as wide as high, however standard definition television and some monitors have physical pixels/phosphor grids that are wider than tall, this causes a distorted image.

Categories: AV, Hardware

< PDF | K.B. Index | Process >