WHAT IS A PIXEL What are pixels WHAT

WHAT IS A PIXEL? What are pixels?

WHAT ARE PIXELS? • The word pixel comes from the combination of two words – ‘Picture’ and ‘Element’. • They are the smallest element that make up a computerized image. • These small squares, arranged in a grid, are what make up the screen in front of you! • If you look close enough, and REALLY hard, you’ll be able to see the individual pixels on your screen.

ZOOOOM IN! Pixels make up an entire image!

RESOLUTION • This is generally a term for • A monitor resolution of 1280 x 1024 means there are how many pixels are in an 1280 pixels from one side to image. another, and 1024 from top to • It also refers to the width x bottom! height of an image. • Another for instance would be a camera – the more megapixels a camera has, the more pixels per photograph, and the higher the quality of the image.

SO, HOW MANY PIXELS DO I NEED? - The answer to how many pixels are "enough" depends on what you want to do with the image, and how big you want to enlarge it. - When you blow up an image too much you start to see the individual pixels. - That effect is called "pixelation. "

FILE TYPES • The most important file types for this class will be: –. jpg –. png –. psd –. ai

. JPG What is it? (Joint Photographic Experts Group) - The most commonly used still image format. - Can be used by almost any image viewer. - Used to compress digital images for web viewing – many other file formats do not compress the way a. jpg does, making them too large to work properly on the web. - The original image quality will not remain the same, but the file size will be manageable. - This is the format most of our projects will be saved out as.

. PNG What is it? (Portable Network Graphics format) Similar to. jpg in compression, however: It preserves transparency. Harder to open in image viewers. Great for web!

. PSD &. AI What is it? (Photoshop Document) (Adobe Illustrator) - The native Photoshop and Illustrator file types. - The. psd and. ai stores an image that preserves the imaging options available in either program. These include: - Layers with masks - Transparency - Text - Alpha Channels - Clipping Paths - And other various settings