image fibers

Pixels in Photography

Photographs are altogether another matter. Black and white photographs are pixilated at a microscopic level by small grains of a metallic silver that vary in both size and proximity to one another. Where there are more grains of silver the picture is blacker.

If we say that the images on the shroud are made up of pixels—and many people do—we are talking about something completely different, as well. The pixels of the shroud image are not dots and not grains of something like silver. The pixels are individual lengths of fibers that have a closely similar color. Where there are more image fibers the color is darker. The color produced by the chemical change to the fibers is constant and the various darker and lighter tones of color we perceive are the result of the density of the altered fibers. It is interesting to note that on a high quality inkjet printer (1200 dots per inch), the ink droplets are about 60 microns across, whereas on the shroud, the image-bearing fibrils are only about 15 microns thick or about one-fifth the thickness of typical human hair.