A way to define pixel (which comes from “picture element”) is – the basic unit of programmable color on an LCD display or in a digital image. It can be described as a logical – rather than a physical – unit. The physical size of a pixel depends on how you’ve set the resolution for the display screen. If a screen is set to its maximum resolution, the physical size of one pixel will be the same as the physical size of a dot of the display. If the resolution is set to a value less than the maximum resolution, a pixel will be bigger than the physical size of the screen’s dot (basically, a pixel will use more than one dot). The color of each pixel is a combination of three components of three colors – RGB (red, green and blue). Three bytes of data at most are allocated for each major color component that can define a pixel. A true-color or 24-bit color system uses all three bytes.
Mega Pixel and Pixel Pitch
Usually, the term megapixel (MP or Mpx) accounts for how many pixels there are in a digital image. It can also be used to quantify how many elements a digital camera has in its image sensor. One Mega Pixel equals 1 million pixels. For example, a digital camera that outputs 2048 by 1536 pixel image has 3.2 megapixels. In general, the higher the number of megapixels a camera has, the better the quality when printing an image will be. A very important factor that can define pixel density and quality of digital screens is the pixel pitch. Pixel pitch is the smallest physical element of a picture. A monitor with a smaller pixel pitch can display a more miniature element. Hence, the smaller the display elements, the sharper the picture will be on the monitor. The Pixel pitch of a screen is measured in millimeters (mm). The pixel pitch on desktop computer monitors shouldn’t be higher than 0.28 mm. If it’s any higher the monitor may not display a very sharp image.