Rocket zooms in on a mission photo of a leafy plant. He zooms again, and again.
"Whoa! The plant turned into little squares!" he shouts.
Raven leans in. "What do you notice? Each square is just one color."
Nova hovers by the screen. "Here is a hint," she says. "Count the squares in one row. Then count the rows."
Rocket starts counting.
A digital picture is made of many tiny spots of color.
Each spot is called a pixel. Pixel is short for picture element.
Pixels sit in rows and columns, like squares on graph paper.
From far away, the pixels blend into one picture.
| Word | What it means |
|---|---|
| pixel | one tiny spot of color |
| row | a line of pixels going across |
| column | a line of pixels going up and down |
| grid | all the rows and columns together |
To count pixels in a grid, count the pixels in one row.
Then count the rows. Multiply the two numbers.
A grid with 3 rows of 4 pixels has 12 pixels.
| Statement | True or false? |
|---|---|
| A digital picture is made of pixels. | ? |
| Pixel is short for picture element. | ? |
| One pixel can show three colors at once. | ? |
| A grid of 3 rows and 3 columns has 9 pixels. | ? |
Great pixel spotting! Tomorrow you will learn how each pixel gets its color from numbers.