When is a Square not a Square?

Adobe assumes that pixels are square. They are on printers, which is why you can print correctly. But LCD manufacturers can make pixels any shape they wish, and apparently yours are rectangular.

I suggest trying your experiments with different screen resolutions, since this can also cause problems. The 1280×1024 resolution uses a different aspect from all the others, for instance.

I agree with Don about the square pixel anomaly.

Unfortunately, LCDs tend to have a native resolution, and if yours is 1024×768, then you may be stuck on that resolution. All LCDs that I have encountered that has their resolution changed from the native rez look extremely horrible.

(I cannot remember if my LCDs at work can adjust the horizontal of vertical scaling of the image, but I am pretty sure that they cannot.)

CRTs on the other hand can usually be adjusted for this.

If budget permits, maybe a different monitor would be better.

Hello

I had the same problem when I displayed images at 1280 by 1024. The proper resolution to display properly a square or circle is 1280 by 960, at least on a CRT. This on a CRT with a 4 to 3 aspect ration gives 320 pixels per inch in both axes.

Mike Engles

Thanks to those of you who replied. Seems like most new LCD monitors come with native resolutions of 1280 x 1024 (for some reason more pixels is considered to be better…obviously the manufacturers are not the same people who use the screens and can barely read the text).

This sizing problem isn’t crucial to my day-to-day activities, but it really caught my attention yesterday.

To Malameel: You can very likely change the horizontal setting of your computer at work; the changes I made yesterday with a function of the Display software of Windows 98, not the monitor itself.

dcwarner

Not to split hairs, but no CRT has anywhere near that ppi.

Your 1280 screen rez gives apprx:
91 horiz ppi on 19 inch monitor
100 horiz ppi on 17 inch monitor
etc.

Mac

Hello

You are right about the number of pixels. What I was trying to allude to is how the aspect ratio of a CRT, its resolution and how a shape is displayed are connected.

Mike Engles

Any computer monitor is supposed to display square pixels. If it doesn’t then it’s out of adjustment.

The pixels must be square at all resolutions. Squares should look square. If they don’t, adjust your monitor. If you can’t adjust it, replace it. Or just live with it, knowing it’s got a problem.

Don’t confuse this with DV video footage, which uses "non-square" pixels. (Really, the DV issue stems from a sampling rate that yields more pixels horizontally than vertically.)

Rob Mack

wrote in message

Is a pixel a square or rectangle on an LCD screen?

I have an LCD screen, set to the native resolution of 1024 X 768. I was

editing a photo in Photoshop that was 150×150 pixels wide. I noticed it looked rectangular on the screen. Checking this with a ruler confirmed that it was. (However, when printed on a laser printer, it printed as a square.)

Using the help feature with Windows 98, I was able to find out how to

"calibrate my display to actual dimensions" in the Display –> Settings –> Advanced tab by making the ruler under the Font Size window exactly match the dimensions of a ruler. The 150×150 image now looks square on the computer screen.

This got me thinking about other programs, and, indeed, before I made the

adjustment, a circle looked elliptical in Word Perfect and Word, but the printed images were circular.

I can see where this "distortion" is probably more of a problem in

illustrating programs, but since I use Photoshop for some image work (making buttons and similar items), I’m now a bit perplexed.

This said, I’m not sure what questions to really ask, but I am interested

in knowing what other users have done to either solve or just cope with the problem. Since different monitors have different resolutions AND the vertical/horizontal ratios do vary–usually between .75 and .8–I must not be the only person to have encountered this issue.