Pixel
Pixel may refer to any of the following:
1. The term pixel comes from PEL (Picture ELement). A px (pixel) is the smallest portion of an image or display that a computer can display. You can better understand a pixel when zooming into an image, as seen.
In this example image, the game character is magnified by 1600%. Each square in the image represents a single pixel. Everything on the computer display looks similar to this when zoomed in.
Pixels are only related to anything shown on a display. Printed images are created by little dots measured in DPI (Dots Per Inch).
Interactive example
Below is an interactive example of zooming into an image to see its pixels. Click-and-drag the zoom slider below the image to the right to zoom into the image. As you drag the slider, the image size increases, making the pixels more visible. When the image exceeds its contained area, use the image's scroll bars on a computer or your finger on a touch screen to move it around.
Screen pixels
The picture below is a close-up of pixels on an LCD (Liquid-Crystal Display) screen. It magnifies the "he" portion of the word "help" to illustrate how the display works. Each pixel has RGB (Red, Green, and Blue) color components. The brightness of each component is increased or decreased to produce the variance of colors you see on the screen.
How to determine a pixel color
To get any pixel's color value or color code, use a third-party tool such as GetPixelColor from SoftwareOk.
What is a pixel font size?
For further information about defining a font size using pixels as a unit of measurement, see our px page.
DPI vs PPI
DPI and PPI (Pixels Per Inch) are similar and may be confused as being the same thing. Although similar, they're not the same. DPI is a measurement used for printers and scanners that deal with paper. PPI is also a measurement for resolution but is used for screens like your computer monitor.
2. Pixel is a shortened description of the Google Pixel smartphone.
3. The word pixel is sometimes misspelled as "pexel." However, the correct spelling is always "pixel" when referring to digital displays, images, or products. The term "Pexels" is only valid when describing a company. Pixels is a company that offers free images online. See the following link for the Pexels website and other free image websites.
Anti-aliasing, Aseprite, Computer acronyms, Computer portmanteaus, Dead pixel, Destructive editing, Display element, DPI, Jaggies, Megapixel, Photoshop terms, Point, Px, Resolution, Screen, Texel, Video terms, Voxel