What do pixels look like

See that tiny little red rectangle in the center of the image I've circled it to make it easier to see? That's the section of the photo we're looking at in the document window above:. At this level of magnification, the image doesn't look anything like a butterfly, and is quite obviously nothing more than a collection of colored squares.

These squares are the pixels, and it's these pixels that Photoshop sees and cares about. Photoshop doesn't care what the subject of the photo is supposed to be. It doesn't know what your family looks like, what your dog looks like, what the lake near your cottage looks like, or even what this butterfly looks like.

All Photoshop knows is pixels. You may have noticed in the zoomed-in screenshot above that each individual pixel contains only one color. Some pixels may appear to contain different shades of that one color near their edges, depending on the color of the pixel next to it, but that's just your eyes playing tricks on you.

Seriously, it's an illusion, yet it's an illusion caused by a whole other topic on color which we won't get into here. All we need to understand for now is that each individual pixel uses exactly one color, and it's the color of the pixels that we're changing whenever we edit our digital photographs in Photoshop. Updated on December 02, Tweet Share Email. Introduction TV Basics. What is a Smart TV?

What Are Pixels? TV Buying Guide. What Is 4K? Best TVs by Brand. Best TVs by Size. Best TV Accessories. In This Article. Pixels and Resolution. Pixel Density and Screen Size. Pixels per Inch. TVs vs. Video Projectors. Was this page helpful? Thanks for letting us know! Email Address Sign up There was an error. Please try again. You're in! Thanks for signing up. There was an error. Tell us why! More from Lifewire. Video Projector vs. Image resolution describes the amount of detail that an image contains.

The term can be applied to digital images, film images, and prints. The bottom line is that higher resolution means more image detail. Camera manufacturers are always trying to sell you on the number of megapixels. As you see from the image above, which is a fairly low resolution image, when I blow it up too much, I start to see the individual pixels.

There is software available to help you increase the resolution of your images artificially. Genuine Fractals by onOne Software is an excellent example of such software. Keep in mind that for a point and shoot camera, beyond a certain point probably around 4 to 5 megapixels , more megapixels will not necessarily yield a better image. Other issues, like lack of overall image sharpness due to poor image or lens quality, or poor lighting, will limit the usefulness of more megapixels.

In a DSLR, however, more megapixels give you the flexibility to enlarge your images more, and also crop out sections of them, while retaining reasonable resolution for printing.