Pixelization

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This article is about the graphical editing/censorship technique. For the undesirable phenomenon where individual pixels are visible, see pixelation. For the stop motion animation technique, see pixilation.

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Pixelation was used to anonymize this photograph by applying a mosaic to the face.

Pixelization is a video- and image-editing technique where an image, or part of it, is blurred by displaying part or all of it at a lower resolution. A familiar example of pixelization can be found in television news and documentary production, where vehicle license plates and faces of suspects at crime scenes are routinely obscured to maintain the presumption of innocence, and footage showing nude genitalia, buttocks, or breasts is likewise obscured for cultural reasons. Likewise, when obscene language is bleeped out, the mouth of the speaker may be pixelized to prevent lip reading (this is not common, however).

The obscured image may not be truly offensive, but merely something production doesn't want to show. For example, they may be wanting to save something for a proper reveal, or they may want to avoid unintentional product placement (censorship for this purpose is more common on reality shows). For most censorship purposes, pixelization has been mostly supplanted by simply blurring the image, so as to appear one is looking at the image through fogged glass.

Here pixelization obscures this smart card's embossed characters, except for the expiration date.

In early 2006, the website Ironic Sans noticed with tongue in cheek that reality TV shows pixelize logos on clothing so much, that it might make reality TV producers' lives easier if there were a line of pre-pixelated clothes for Reality TV stars [1]. The idea was picked up by major media, and the shirts have been featured on television, and in fashion and entertainment publications worldwide.

On the famous TV show COPS Producers blur faces of suspects and witnesses who refuse to sign a release form.

It has also been used for artistic effects, notably in the art print The Wave of the Future, a reinterpretation of Katsushika Hokusai's The Great Wave at Kanagawa. In this updated print, the image of the large ocean wave shifts from the traditional style of the Japanese woodcut print through a pixelated image and finally to a wireframe computer graphics image.

The pixelization effect is a standard graphics filter, available in all but the most basic bitmap graphics editors.

[edit] Legal standards

Japanese law requires that genitals in pornographic movies be obscured, a practice referred to as porn mosaic^[1]. Additionally, Japanese law requires blurring of other items for television broadcast, such as handcuffs or the faces of non-adults.

In Thailand, Malaysia, and some surrounding countries, restrictions are placed on TV broadcasting of cigarettes being smoked^[2], alcohol being drunk, or guns being pointed at people. Pixelation is the preferred method of dealing with this 'objectionable' content.