Resolution

Refers to the sharpness and clarity of an image. The term is most often used to describe monitors, printers, and bit-mapped graphic images. In the case of dot-matrix and laser printers, the resolution indicates the number of dots per inch. For example, a 300-dpi (dots per inch) printer is one that is capable of printing 300 distinct dots in a line 1 inch long. This means it can print 90,000 dots per square inch. For graphics monitors, the screen resolution signifies the number of dots (pixels) on the entire screen. For example, a 640-by-480 pixel screen is capable of displaying 640 distinct dots on each of 480 lines, or about 300,000 pixels. This translates into different dpi measurements depending on the size of the screen. For example, a 15-inch VGA monitor (640x480) displays about 50 dots per inch.Printers, monitors, scanners, and other I/O devices are often classified as high resolution, medium resolution, or low resolution. The actual resolution ranges for each of these grades is constantly shifting as the technology improves.

This term is used to describe how fine of an image a monitor can display and a printer can print. With printers, resolution is measured by the number of pixels per inch the printer can print. This measurement is known as dots per inch, or "dpi". Similarly, the resolution of a scanner is measured in dpi. 600 dpi is a reasonable resolution for a consumer level printer or scanner. Because the sizes of monitors differ, monitor resolution can't be measured in dpi. Instead, the resolution of a monitor refers to the number of pixels that can be displayed on the screen. For example, in a 640 x 480 resolution, there are 640 horizontal lines are drawn across the screen and 480 drawn vertically. Some common monitor resolutions are 640 x 480, 800 x 600, 1,024 x 768, and 1,280 x 1,024.