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What is a resolution?

In one sentence: How many pixels a picture or screen has, such as 1920 by 1080; more pixels can show finer detail.

A little more

Resolution is how many pixels a picture or screen has, usually written as width by height: 1920 × 1080 is about two million pixels, and a 12-megapixel photo is about 4000 × 3000. More pixels can show finer detail, such as the writing on a sign far away.

Shrinking a picture lowers its resolution for good: each new pixel is a blend of several old ones. Zooming in on a screen just makes the existing pixels bigger, which is why a zoomed-in photo turns blocky or soft instead of showing new detail.

See it in action

  1. BonusCan a blocky picture be made sharp again?Guess a mystery blob made of just 16 squares, buy back real patches of detail with five coins, then see the original.7 min · interactive

Do it for real

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