A couple of years ago the most frequent answer to that question would have been 1024×768 pixels. Nowadays, with wide screen LCD monitors, the answer to that question is going to be something like 1680×1050 pixels. And even wider for HD LCD displays, something like 1920×1080.
So how do you find out the resolution of the display you are using. On a Windows platform, right click on an empty portion of your desk top and select Properties from the drop down menu. In the Properties Dialog select the Settings tab. In the middle left of that tab you will see a section called Screen Resolution. The slider below will let you change your display resolution. If you want to change your display resolution from 1280×768 pixels to 1680×1050 pixels this is where you can do that (assuming that the version of the OS you are running supports it). Note that the slider that changes the number of pixels in each direction is call Screen Resolution.
But wait a minute, back when I went to school the term resolution was like density; it was a number of one unit of measure per single unit of another measure. Density is defined as mass per unit of volume. An example of resolution, taken from halftone printing, uses the term resolution to refers to the number of lines per inch. So shouldn’t the resolution of your display be measured in pixels per inch (ppi)? Well….it is and it isn’t–depending on the context. And that, is at the root of this rant.
In current usage, the term display or monitor resolution is being used to define the pixel dimensions (the number of pixels in the horizontal and vertical directions) of the display. And, as such, tells us nothing about the display’s true resolution or it’s ability to resolve small objects. In order to do that we would need a measure like pixels per inch.
I know that this is not going to change. Put as a digital imaging instructor I’ve ran into a lot of confusion about file resolution, display resolution and print resolution. And I believe that the use of the word “resolution” to describe the pixel dimension of a monitor is at the root of a lot of that confusion.
I wish Microsoft and others would stop using the word resolution to describe what is truly pixel dimensions. But, as I said earlier, that’s not going to happen. But now that I’ve written this I do feel better. Maybe I’ll go out and make some images. I know I make better images when I’m in a good mood (more on this in another post).
So that I include at least one tidbit of useful information on this topic here is a tip for resizing images to be viewed on a display (either as email, web, or even projected). When you are sizing an image for display (as opposed to print), the only thing that matters is the pixel dimensions. This is because the display shows one image pixel for each display dot. So the concept of resolution doesn’t apply here. That is, it doesn’t matter how tightly or loosely the pixels are packed. For example an image sized to 600×400 pixels at 72 pixels per inch will display exactly the same as an image sized to 600×400 at 300 pixels per inch (on the same display of course). So when resizing images for display, think in terms of the number of pixels in each dimension. and don’t worry about what the resolution is.
How does this affect the appearance of your image on different monitors. The same image file will be displayed smaller on a 1680×1050 (WSXGA) than on a 1024×768 (XGA) display. This is for the same reason that text appears smaller on larger monitors. The true resolution is higher–but they don’t tell you that.