Pixels

Whilst setting up my new blog template it came up with the option to choose how many pixels wide I would like my page to be and this got me thinking, what are pixels?

Well Webopedia.com describes pixels, as “A pixel is a single point in a graphic image.” The word pixel was a word coined in 1969 to describe the photographic elements of television image, pix (picture) and el (element). Now what actually are pixels? Pixels are thousands of tiny little squares that are divided across your screen but are so tiny and so close together that they look connected.

The number of bits a pixel has its ability to display a certain amount of colors. For example, 8-bit means the monitor uses 8 bits for every pixel making it possible to display up to 256 colors (shades of gray). The quality of your display mostly depends on its resolution (how many pixels it can display and how many bits are used to represent each pixel). To give an example VGA, VGA systems display at 640 by 480, or about 300,000 pixels. Although now a days most displays are run on 24bit systems allowing them to display over 16 million different colors.

So that’s about it for pixels. To learn what pixels can be used for stay tuned for a blog on the Ipad 3 and its incredible resolution. Stay tuned for more.

Also if anyone can name 16 million colors of the top of your head I would be glad to see it in the comments below!