19th Century Pixelation

“Oh, no! The image got all pixelated!”

That’s the distressed cry of digital photographers who discover an image is too low resolution to be displayed in large format.

With too few pixels, each pixel (or minute element of a digital image) is enlarged enough to become annoyingly obvious with jagged stair steps where there should be smooth curves.

Technically this irritating occurrence is called “aliasing,” but the preponderance of pesky pixels produced the popular expression “pixelation.”

But the word “pixilated” was used as early as 1848. How is that possible? Photography was in its infancy. That was even before film photography.

And the only digital photography occurred when a photographer accidentally stuck his finger in front of the lens. So whence “pixelated?"

The word, which is also spelled “pixillated” or “pixilated” comes from “pixie,” not “pixel.” The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “Chiefly U.S. regional. Slightly crazed; bewildered, confused; fey, whimsical; (also) intoxicated." In Ross Macdonald’s Find a Victim (1954) are the lines, “‘Wasn't he pretty drunk on Sunday?’ ‘He was pixilated all right,’ Jo said.”

“Pixelation” had a use related to camera work before digital photography. According to Wikipedia, “Pixilation (from pixilated) is a stop motion technique where live actors are used as a frame-by-frame subject in an animated film, by repeatedly posing while one or more frame is taken and changing pose slightly before the next frame or frames. ... This technique is often used as a way to blend live actors with animated ones in a film.”

Even “pixel” predates digital photography. It was used at least since 1969 to mean "Each of the minute areas of uniform illumination of which the image on a television or computer screen." The word comes from “pix,” a colloquial abbreviation for “pictures” and “el” from “element.”

Well, I admit I get rather pixilated when my pix are pixelated.