PIXEL

The rectangular "dots" that comprise the smallest units of screen color variations. The more pixels that the computer can display per square inch of screen, the higher the resolution of graphics images on the screen. Older CGA resolutions had such large pixels that outlines of individual pixels could be seen in the graphics images. Higher resolutions such as those in Super VGA make it harder to detect pixels without zooming enlargements of parts of the screen. Larger numbers of pixels make graphics modification tasks more tedious.

Short for Picture Element, a pixel is a single point in a graphic image. Graphics monitors display pictures by dividing the display screen into thousands (or millions) of pixels, arranged in rows and columns. The pixels are so close together that they appear connected. The number of bits used to represent each pixel determines how many colors or shades of gray can be displayed. For example, in 8-bit color mode, the color monitor uses 8 bits for each pixel, making it possible to display 2 to the 8th power (256) different colors or shades of gray. On color monitors, each pixel is actually composed of three dots -- a red, a blue, and a green one. Ideally, the three dots should all converge at the same point, but all monitors have some convergence error that can make color pixels appear fuzzy.The quality of a display system largely depends on its resolution, how many pixels it can display, and how many bits are used to represent each pixel. VGA systems display 640 by 480, or about 300,000 pixels. In contrast, SVGA systems display 1,024 by 768, or nearly 800,000 pixels. True Color systems use 24 bits per pixel, allowing them to display more than 16 million different colors.

One dot on a computer screen.640x480,or 800x600,and special purpose monitors may go much higher pixels.