A pixel is a tiny dot.
It is part of a picture.
Many dots make one big image.
More dots make the picture look clear.
They can be many colors.
We see them on screens.
Can you find a tiny dot?
A pixel is a tiny dot.
These dots make up a picture. They sit in rows and columns. This forms a grid.
Each dot has its own color. Some dots use red, green, and blue. These colors mix to make new colors.
Many dots make one big image. If you use more dots, the picture looks better. It looks more like the real thing.
Old games used big dots. This is called pixel art.
Today, screens use millions of tiny dots.
A pixel is the smallest part of a digital image.
Pixels sit in a regular grid of rows and columns. Each pixel acts as a sample of an original picture. If you use more pixels, the image looks more accurate.
Pixels can show different colors. Most systems use red, green, and blue. These are called RGB. By mixing these, the screen makes a wide range of colors. Some systems also use cyan, magenta, yellow, and black.
Sometimes, pixels are too big to see. This happens in old video games. People call this pixel art.
Modern screens use millions of pixels. We use the term megapixel to talk about one million pixels. Some screens also use subpixels. These are even smaller parts that help make text look sharp.
In a digital camera, the number of pixels is called the resolution. A high resolution means the picture has many tiny details.
A pixel is the smallest part of a digital image.
You can think of it as a tiny building block. These tiny blocks are arranged in a regular grid. This grid looks like rows and columns on a piece of graph paper. Each pixel is a single sample of a larger picture. When you have a huge number of samples, the image looks very clear. If you use very few samples, the image looks blocky.
This is why we use the word resolution to describe detail.
Pixels work by using different colors and brightness. Most screens use a system called RGB. This stands for red, green, and blue. Each pixel has a specific intensity for these colors. By mixing these three colors, the screen can create many different shades. Some printers use a different system called CMYK. This uses cyan, magenta, yellow, and black.
This mixing allows a screen to show a wide spectrum of colors. Every pixel can be changed by software to show a new color.
People have used the idea of picture elements for a long time. A German patent from 1888 used the word "Bildpunkt." This word literally means "picture point." The specific word "pixel" became more common later. It was used in various U.S. patents starting in 1911. The word itself is a mix of "pix" and "el." "Pix" is short for pictures, and "el" stands for element.
Frederic C. Billingsley first published the word "pixel" in 1965. He used it to describe images from space probes sent to the Moon and Mars.
Modern technology uses a massive number of these tiny dots. We often use the term megapixel to talk about large amounts. One megapixel is equal to one million pixels.
Early computers had much lower resolution. Their pixels were large enough for people to see with their eyes. This style of drawing is often called pixel art. You can see this in many older video games. Today, displays can show orders of magnitude more pixels than before.
Even smaller parts exist inside a single pixel. These are called subpixels.
On many screens, subpixels are arranged in a staggered grid. This helps the screen make text look much sharper for the reader. You can also find pixels in many different tools. Digital cameras use them to capture light on a sensor. Astronomers use them to study objects in the sky. Whether on a phone or a telescope, pixels help us see the world through machines.
A pixel, often abbreviated as px, is the smallest addressable physical element of a raster image. It is also the smallest controllable element found in a display device or a dot matrix printer. You can think of pixels as the fundamental building blocks of digital imagery. These tiny elements are arranged in a regular, two-dimensional grid. Each pixel acts as a single sample of an original image. When a system uses a higher number of these samples, it provides a more accurate representation of the subject.
The way a pixel creates color is a fascinating process of mixing intensities. In most color imaging systems, a pixel is composed of three or four component intensities. For example, many digital displays use the RGB model, which stands for red, green, and blue. Other systems, such as those used in printing, use the CMYK model, which includes cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. The intensity of each component is variable. By combining these different intensities, the system can produce a wide spectrum of colors.
Inside a single pixel, there are even smaller components known as subpixels. On many liquid-crystal displays (LCDs), these subpixels are arranged in a staggered grid. This means the red, green, and blue components are sampled at slightly different locations. Technology like ClearType uses this subpixel arrangement to improve how text is rendered on a screen. This makes the edges of letters look much smoother to the human eye.
While pixels are usually square, some systems use rectangular pixels that are oblong in shape.
The history of the picture element stretches back much further than the modern computer. The concept appeared in an 1888 German patent by Paul Nipkow, where it was called "Bildpunkt," meaning "picture point." The term "pixel" itself is a combination of "pix," a shortening of "pictures," and "el," for "element." The word "pix" appeared in magazine headlines as early as 1932. However, the specific term "pixel" was first published in 1965 by Frederic C. Billingsley. He used it to describe the picture elements of images scanned from space probes sent to the Moon and Mars.
We can measure the detail of an image by looking at its resolution. This is often expressed in terms of how many pixels are used. For instance, a "three-megapixel" camera contains approximately three million pixels. Pixel counts can also be given as a pair of numbers, such as a 640 by 480 display. This specific VGA display contains a total of 307,200 pixels. Modern displays can render orders of magnitude more pixels than early computers could.
Because early computers had such low resolution, their large pixels were visible to the naked eye. This specific aesthetic is known as pixel art, which is common in older video games.
The number of colors a pixel can show depends on its bit depth, or bits per pixel (bpp). Each additional bit doubles the number of available colors. A 1 bpp image is monochrome, meaning it only has two colors: on or off. An 8 bpp image can show 256 colors, while a 24 bpp image can represent 16,777,216 colors, a standard known as "Truecolor." Some advanced systems use 32-bit depth, which adds an extra 8 bits to describe the opacity, or how see-through an image is. This allows different images to be combined effectively.
Pixels are used in many different scientific fields beyond just computer screens. In digital cameras, the term may refer to a single photosite on a sensor. In astronomy, the pixel scale is measured as the angular distance between two objects in the sky. This is calculated using the ratio of pixel spacing to the focal length of the telescope's optics. Whether they are used in a smartphone, a printer, or a massive telescope, pixels allow us to translate the physical world into digital data.
Where will your curiosity go next?
🖼️ Images & Media (9)
More to explore
✨ What else?
Related topics you might enjoy
🔬 Go deeper
More advanced topics to explore
🪜 Step back
Simpler topics to build understanding
What is Nepedia?
A free, ad-free encyclopedia for children. Every article is written at five reading levels, so the same page works for a five-year-old and a fifteen-year-old — use the level switcher above to see this one change. No account needed to read.