What are Pixels… and other tips for photographers.Written by Granny's Mettle
What are pixels?When you take hold of a digital camera, or even a traditional one, you constantly read or hear about "pixels". "This digital camera has 8.0 megapixels." "This one has 6.5 megapixels." So what are pixels exactly? According to My Design Primer, PIXEL came from first letters of "pix element"- pix meaning picture. It is smallest unit on a display screen or monitor. By dividing monitor into rows and columns of pixels, one may be able to see pictures displayed on monitors. The more pixels are squeezed into a monitor's surface, smoother an image will appear on screen. They will appear like they're connected to your eye because pixels are usually so close together. A monitor with more pixels per inch (PPI) will be more expensive than a cheaper one. The number of bits used to display each pixel determines how many colors a pixel can display. For example, a color monitor uses 8 bits per pixel in an 8-bit color mode. This makes possible display of 256 (or 2 to 8th power) colors on screen. Each pixel in a color monitor is made up of dots- red, blue, and green (RGB). These three dots are focused on same spot when you look at it, creating a very smooth image. The quality of a monitor depends on its resolution. It indicates how many pixels it can display in a given area, as well as how many bits are contained in each pixel.
| | Picas vs InchesWritten by Maricon Williams
Points and Picas is standard measurement for type. Once you’re familiar that 12 inches = 1 foot and 12 points = 1 pica, it’ll be easy.According to Mars Crash Prevention, A pica is a unit of space equal to 1/6th of an inch. There are 6 picas to an inch. Actually there are 6.022499489 picas to inch but 6 is accepted number. That's pretty simple. A point is equal to one 1/12 of a pica. So, if there are 12 points in a pica and 6 picas to an inch, you get 72 points to inch. And this does matter because we use this every day. When somebody says use 72-point type, they mean 1 inch high type. 36-point type is 1/2 inch tall. In Points and Picas, Stan Ketterer discussed, “The basic units of measurement in design are points and picas. You use points to measure type size. Headlines are measured in points. When you dummy a headline on a page, however, you must convert points to picas because pages are dummied in picas and sometimes column inches. A column inch is one inch of type over one column. There are 12 points in a pica. If you divide point size of a headline by 12, you get number of picas. For example, if you have a 48-point headline and want to know how many picas to allow for it, take following steps: 1) Because there are 12 points in a pica, divide 48 by 12 to get number of picas. 48/12= 4 picas.
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